f}ri>A*RY     *^ 


S-AN.Ii  ;£&'->. 


THE  urnVEnSfTY  LICRART 

UN!VERsn"Y  or  awr  :  •  han  dieqc 


KANT  AND  SPENCER 


A  STUDY  OF  TH« 


FALLACIES  OF  AGNOSTICISM 


DR.  PAUL  CARUS 


CHICAGO 

THE    OPEN    COURT    PUBLISHING    COMPANY 

LONDON  AGENTS: 
Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  TrObnkr  &  Co.,  Ltd, 

1899 


PREFACE. 

TV  /rODERN  philosophy  begins  with  Kant  because  Kant  bioke 
•^*-'-  with  the  traditional  Dogmatism  and  supplanted  it  by  Crit 
icism.  He  proposed  the  new  plan  of  building  doctrines  upon  the 
firm  ground  of  experience.  Kant  was  the  first  positivist  in  the 
sense  that  all  philosophy  must  be  based  upon  facts.  How  strange 
that  in  France  and  England  his  views  were  misunderstood  by  those 
who  endeavored  to  progress  along  the  same  lines  !  Auguste  Comte 
denounced  Kant  as  an  antiquated  metaphysician  and  Herbert 
Spencer  looks  upon  him  as  the  champion  of  mediaevalism  and  dog- 
matism. The  truth  is  that  neither  the  former  nor  the  latter  knew 
anything  of  Kant  and  so  wasted  their  powder  without  demolishing 
their  enemy  but  they  did  a  great  deal  of  harm  by  leading  the  public 
astray  and  perverting  the  real  issues.  They  themselves  failed  in 
their  main  aspirations ;  neither  Comte  nor  Spencer  succeeded  in 
proposing  a  scientific  philosophy ;  both  ended  in  agnosticism, 
which  is  practically  a  declaration  of  philosophical  bankruptcy.* 
The  merits  of  both  Comte  and  Spencer  cannot  be  underrated  ; 
both  did  good  work  in  collecting  and  systematising  material, — the 
former,  a  mathematical  genius,  in  a  truly  scientific  manner,  the 
latter  as  a  populariser.  Comte  became  better  acquainted  with 
Kant  in  his  advanced  age  and  regretted  deeply  that  he  had  mis- 
understood the  trend  of  his  thought,  because  he  thus  missed  the 
benefit  of  his  wholesome  influence. 

I  do  not  say  that  it  is  necessary  to  be  a  Kantist  in  any  sense  ; 
but  to  be  a  leader  of  thought,  a  leader  that  leads  onward  and  for- 
ward, it  is  indispensable  to  understand  Kant.  Mr.  Spencer's  atti- 
tude toward  Kant  has  remained  disdainful  and  even  hostile.    This 

*  For  a  discussion  of  French  positivism  as  represented  by  Auguste  Comte 
and  his  most  illustrious  disciple  Emile  Littr^  see  Monitt,  Vol.  II,  pp. 403-417 


2  PREFACE. 

IS  the  more  to  be  regretted  as  Mr.  Spencer  possesses  many  rare 
accomplishments  that  would  naturally  have  fitted  him  to  become 
an  apostle  of  progress.  He  is  regarded  so  by  many  of  his  ad- 
herents and  enemies,  but  only  by  those  who  are  superficially  ac- 
quainted with  philosophical  problems.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  Mr.  Spencer  is  a  reactionary  spirit.  He  seems  progressive 
because  he  objects  to  the  religious  dogmas  that  have  been  estab- 
lished by  tradition,  but  he  is  reactionary  because  he  boldly  sets  up 
nescience  as  a  philosophical  principle,  and  the  time  is  near  at  hand 
when  his  very  enemies  will  take  refuge  in  his  doctrines. 

We  have  a  high  respect  for  Mr.  Spencer  as  a  man  and  a 
thinker,  but  it  is  a  great  pity  that  with  all  his  brilliant  talents,  with 
all  his  ambition  and  energy,  he  has  been  deficient  in  thoroughness 
and  earnestness.  As  a  philosopher, he  is  a  dilettante.  Dilettantism 
is  a  marked  feature  not  only  of  his  entire  system  but  also  of  the 
way  in  which  he  has  worked  it  out.  Kant  was  too  heavy  reading 
for  him  and  the  labor  of  studying  his  works  did  not  seem  prom- 
ising. Mr.  Spencer,  as  a  thinker,  follows  the  principle  of  Hedon- 
ism ;  he  shirks  the  toil  of  research  and  engages  in  such  subjects 
only  as  can  easily  be  woven  into  feuilletonistic  essays. 

For  those  who  think  that  this  opinion  is  too  severe,  the  articles 
on  Kayit  and  Spencer,  including  a  discussion  of  Spencerian  Ag- 
nosticism, all  of  which  appeared  some  time  ago  in  The  Open  Court 
and  The  Monist,  are  here  republished  in  book  form.  The  present 
little  volume  contains  also  Mr.  Spencer's  reply  in  full  and  his  let- 
ter in  which  he  declines  further  to  enter  into  the  subject. 

In  fine  we  have  to  add  that  these  articles  are  not  purely  con- 
troversial. While  they  are  a  criticism  of  Mr.  Spencer's  flagrant 
mistakes  they  are  intended  to  serve  the  higher  purpose  of  promot- 
ing the  comprehension  of  philosophy.  They  are  a  contribution 
to  the  history  of  philosophy  ;  but  the  historical  and  literary  ques- 
tions here  treated  are  after  all  merely  the  background  upon  which 
problems  of  basic  significance  are  elucidated. 

La  Salle,  III.,  U.  S.  A.  The  Author. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The  Ethics  of  Kant 5 

Kant  on  Evolution 3^ 

Mr.  Spencer's  Agnosticism 5* 

Mr.  Spencer's  Comment  and  the  Author's  Reply 7^ 


THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT. 

MR.  Herbert  Spencer  published  in  The  Popular 
Science  Monthly  for  August  1888  an  essay  on 
the  Ethics  of  Kant;  a  translation  of  this  article  pre- 
viously appeared  in  the  Revue  Fhilosophique,  and  it 
cannot  fail  to  have  been  widely  noticed.  It  is  to  be 
regretted  that  unfamiliarity  with  the  German  language 
and  perhaps  also  with  Kant's  terminology  has  led  Mr. 
Spencer  into  errors  to  which  attention  is  called  in  the 
following  discussion.* 

Mr.  Spencer  says : 

"If,  before  Kant  uttered  his  often-quoted  saying  in  which, 
"with  the  stars  of  Heaven  he  coupled  the  conscience  of  Man,  as 
"  being  the  two  things  that  excited  his  awe,  he  had  known  more  of 
"Man  than  he  did,  he  would  probably  have  expressed  himself 
"somewhat  otherwise." 

Kant,  in  his  famous  dictum  that  two  things  excited 
his  admiration,  the  starry  heaven  above  him  and  the 
conscience  within  him,  contrasted  two  kinds  of  sub- 
limity.f  The  grandeur  of  the  Universe  is  that  of  size 
and  extension,  while  the  conscience  of  man  commands 
respect  for  its  moral  dignity.  The  universe  is  won- 
derful in  its  expanse  and  in  its  order  of  mechanical 

•  Quotations  from  Mr.  Spencer's  essay  will  be  distinguished  by  quotation- 
marks,  while  those  from  Kant  will  appear  in  hanging  indentations. 

t  Kant  distinguishes  two  kinds  of  sublimity:  (i)  the  mathematical,  and 
(2)  the  dynamical.  His  definitions  are:  (i)  sublime  is  that  in  comparison 
with  which  everything  else  is  small;  and  (2)  sublime  is  that  the  mere  ability 
to  conceive  which  shows  a  power  of  emotion  (Gemiith),  the  latter  transcend- 
ing any  measurement  by  the  senses.— [(i)  Erhaben  ist,  mit  welchem  im  Ver- 
gleich  alles  andere  klein  ist.  (2)  Erhaben  ist,  was  auch  nur  denken  zu  konnen 
ein  Vermogen  des  Gemiiths  beweist,  das  jeden  Maasstab  der  Sinne  iibertrittt. 
Editio  Hartenstein,  Vol.  V.,  pp.  257,  258.] 


6  THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT. 

regularity;  the  -conscience  of  man  is  grand,  being  in- 
telligent volition  that  aspires  to  be  in  harmony  with 
universal  laws- 
Mr.  Spencer  continues: 

"Not,  indeed,  that  the  conscience  of  Man  is  not  wonderful 
"enough,  whatever  be  its  supposed  genesis;  but  the  wonderfulness 
"  of  it  is  of  a  different  kind  according  as  we  assume  it  to  have  been 
"  supernaturally  given  or  infer  that  it  has  been  naturally  evolved. 
"The  knowledge  of  Man  in  that  large  sense  which  Anthropology 
"expresses,  had  made,  in  Kant's  day,  but  small  advances.  The 
"books  of  travel  were  relatively  few,  and  the  facts  which  they  con- 
"tained  concerning  the  human  mind  as  existing  in  different  races, 
"  had  not  been  gathered  together  and  generalized.  In  our  days,  the' 
"  conscience  of  Man  as  inductively  known  has  none  of  that  univer- 
"  sality  of  presence  and  unity  of  nature  which  Kant's  saying  tacitly 
"  assumes." 

Mr.  Spencer  apparently  supposes  that  Kant  be- 
lieved in  a  supernatural  origin  of  the  human  con- 
science.    This,  however,  is  erroneous. 

Mr.  Spencer's  error  is  excusable  in  consideration 
of  the  fact  that  some  disciples  of  Kant  have  fallen  into 
a  similar  error.  Professor  Adler,  of  New  York,  who  at- 
tempts in  the  Societies  for  Ethical  Culture  to  carry 
into  effect  the  ethics  of  Pure  Reason,  maintains  that 
the  commandments  of  the  ought  and  "the  light  that 
shines  through  them  come  from  beyond,  but  its  beams 
are  broken  as  they  pass  through  our  terrestrial  me- 
dium, and  the  full  light  in  all  its  glory  we  can  never 
see." 

Ethics  based  on  an  unknowable  power,  is  mys- 
ticism; and  mysticism  does  not  essentially  differ  from 
dualism  and  supernaturalism. 

Kant's  reasoning  is  far  from  mysticism  and 
from  supernaturalism.  He  was  fully  convinced  that 
civilized  man  with  his  moral  and  intellectual  abilities 


THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT.  7 

had  naturally  evolved  from  the  lower  state  of  an 
animal  existence.  We  read  in  his  essay,  "  Presumable 
Origin  of  the  History  of  Mankind"  (Muthmasslicher 
Anfang  der  Menschengeschichte.  Editio  Hartenstein, 
Vol.  IV,  p.  321): 

"From  this  conception  of  the  primitive  history  of  mankind  it  fol- 
lows that  the  departure  of  man  from  the  paradise  represented 
to  him  by  his  reason  as  the  earliest  place  of  sojourn  of  his 
race,  has  been  nothing  else  than  the  transition  from  the  rude 
condition  of  a  purely  animal  existence  to  the  condition  of  a 
human  being;  a  transition  from  the  leading-strings  of  instinct 
to  direction  by  reason,  in  a  word,  from  the  protectorate  of  na- 
ture to  a  status  of  freedom." 

The  view  that  the  conscience  of  man  is  innate,  in 
the  sense  of  a  non-natural,  of  a  mysterious,  or  even  of 
a  supernatural  origin,  is  untenable.     Those  disciples 
of   Kant  who  entertain  such  views  have  certainly  mis- 
interpreted their  great  master,  and  the  passages  ad- 
duced by  Mr.  Spencer  from  so  many  sources  are  suffi- 
cient evidence  of  the  fact  that  "  there  are  widely  dif- 
ferent degrees  "  [we  should  rather  say  kinds]  "  of  con- 
science in  the  different  races."  Mr.  Spencer  continues: 
"Had  Kant  had  these  and  kindred  facts  before  him,  his  con- 
"ception  of  the  human  mind,  and  consequently  his  ethical  con- 
"ception,  would  scarcely  have  been  what  they  were.     Believing, 
"as  he  did,  that  one  object  of  his  awe— the  stellar  Universe— has 
"been  evolved,*  he  might  by  evidence   like  the  foregoing   have 
"been  led  to  suspect  that  the  other  object  of  his  awe— the  human 
"  conscience— has    been   evolved;   and   has  consequently   a   real 
"nature  unlike  its  apparent  nature."  *  *  *  "If,  instead  of  assuming 
"that  conscience  is  simple  because  it  seems  simple  to  careless  in- 
"trospection  he  had  entertained    the    hypothesis  that  it    is  per- 
"haps  complex— a   consolidated  product  of  multitudinous  expe- 
"  riences   received  mainly  by  ancestors   and  added   to   by  self — 
"he  might  have  arrived  at  a  consistent  system  pf  Ethics."  *  *  * 

*  The  stellar  Universe,  of  course,  has  not  been  evolved;  Mr.  Spencer  means 
that  according  to  Kants  mechanical  explanation  the  planetary  systems  and 
milky  ways  of  the  stellar  Universe  are  in  a  state  of  constant  evolution. 


8  THE  ETHICS  OF   KANT. 

"In  brief,  as  already  implied,  had  Kant,  instead  of  his  incon- 
"gruous  beliefs  that  the  celestial  bodies  have  had  an  evolutionary 
"origin,  but  that  the  minds  of  living  beings  on  them,  or  at  least  on 
"one  of  them,  have  had  a  non-evolutionary  origin,  entertained  the 
"belief  that  both  have  arisen  by  Evolution,  he  would  have  been 
' '  saved  from  the  impossibilities  of  his  Metaphysics,  and  the  untena- 
"  bilities  of  his  Ethics." 

Mr.  Spencer  believes  that  Kant  had  assumed  con- 
science to  be  "  simple,  because  it  seems  simple  to 
careless  introspection."  But  there  is  no  evidence  in 
Kant's  works  for  this  assumption.  On  the  contrary, 
Kant  reversed  the  old  view  of  so-called  "rational  psy- 
chology "  which  considered  conscience  as  innate  and 
which  was  based  on  the  error  that  consciousness  is 
simple.  Des  Cartes's  syllogism  cogito  ergo  sicin  is 
based  on  this  idea,  which  at  the  same  time  served  as 
a  philosophical  evidence  for  the  indestructibility  and 
immortality  of  the  ego.  The  simplicity  of  conscious- 
ness had  been  considered  as  an  axiom,  until  Kant 
came  and  showed  that  it  was  a  fallacy,  a  paralogism  of 
pure  reason.  Dr.  Noah  Porter  has  written,  from  an 
apparently  dualistic  standpoint,  a  sketch  entitled  "The 
Ethics  of  Kant,"  in  which  he  says: 

"The  skepticism  and  denials  of  Kant's  speculative  theory  in 
respect  to  noumena,  both  material  and  psychical,  had  unfortunately 
cut  him  off  from  the  possibility  of  recognizing  the  personal  ego  as 
anything  more  than  a  logical  fiction." 

Kant  says  in  his  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason"  :  * 

"  In  the  internal  intuition  there  is  nothing  permanent,  for  the  Ego 
is  but  the  consciousness  of  my  thought.  *  *  *  From  all 
this  it  is  evident  that  rational  psychology  has  its  origin  in  a 
mere  misunderstanding.  The  unity  of  consciousness,  which  lies 
at  the  basis  of  the  categories,  is  considered  to  be  an  intuition 
of  the  subject  as  an  object;  and  the  category  of  substance  is 
applied  to  the  intuition.     But  this  unity  is  nothing  more  thao 

*  Translation  by  J.  M.  D    Meiklcjohn,  pp.  244,  249. 


THE   ETHICS  OF  KANT.  9 

the  unity  in //^('//^C''''!',    by   which   no  object  is  given;   to  which 
therefore  the  category  of  substance  cannot  be  applied."* 

Concerning  the  statement  that  Kant  had  believed 
in  the  non-evolutionary  origin  of  living  beings,  we 
quote  from  his  essay  on  The  Different  Races  of  Men, 
Chap.  Ill,  where  Kant  speaks  of  "  the  immediate 
causes  of  the  origin  of  these  different  races."  He  says: 

"  The  conditions  {Griindc)  which,  inhering  in  the  constitution  of  an 
organic  body,  determine  a  certain  evolutionary  process  (.-lits- 
wickelung])  are  called,  if  this  process  is  concerned  with  par- 
ticular parts,  germs;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  touches  only  the 
size  or  the  relation  of  the  parts  to  one  another,  I  call  it 
natural  capabilities  {natiirliche  Anlagen)."\ 

And  in  a  foot-note  Kant  makes  the  following  re- 
mark: 

"Ordinarily  we  accept  the  terms  natural  science.  {JVattirbeschrei- 
bung)  and  natural  history  in  one  and  the  same  sense.  But  it 
is  evident  that  the  knowledge  of  natural  phenomena,  as  they 
now  are,  always  leaves  to  be  desired  the  knowledge  of  that 
which  they  have  been  before  now  and  through  what  succession 
of  modifications  they  have  passed  in  order  to  have  arrived, 
in  every  respect,  to  their  present  state.  Natural  History, 
which  at  present  we  almost  entirely  lack,  would  teach  us  the 
changes  that  have  affected  the  form  of  the  earth,  likewise, 
the  changes  in  the  creatures  of  the  earth  (plants  and  an- 
imals), that  they  have  suffered  by  natural  transformations 
and,  arising  therefrom,  the  departures  from  the  prototype  of 
the  original  species,  that  they  have  experienced.  It  would 
probably  trace  a  great  number  of  apparently  different  va- 
rieties back  to  species  of  one  and  the  same  kind  and  would 

*  Compare  also  Kant's  "  Prol.  zii  jeder  kunftigen  Metaphysik,"  §  46. 

t  We  call  attention  to  Kant's  peculiar  expression,  in  this  passage,  ol  Aut- 
■wickelung  which  has  now  yielded  to  the  term  Entwickeluttp;. 

X  Die  in  der  Natur  eines  organischen  KOrpers  (Gew.tchses  oder  Thieres)  lie- 
genden  Grunde  einer  bestimmten  Auswickelung  heissen,  wenn  diese  Aus- 
wickelung  besondere  Theile  betrifft,  Keime;  betrifft  sie  aber  nur  die  GrOsse 
Oder  das  Verhaltniss  der  Theile  unter  einander,  so  nenne  ich  sie  nattirluhe 
Ant  a  gen. 


10  THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT. 

convert  the  present  so  intricate  school-system  of  Natural 
Science  into  a  natural  system  in  conformity  with  reason."  * 
Kant  has  nowhere,  so  far  as  we  know,  made  any 
objection  to  the  idea  of  evolution.  But  he  opposed 
the  theory  that  all  life  should  have  originated  from  one 
single  kind.  In  reviewing  and  epitomizing  Joh.  Gottfr. 
Herder's  work,  '^  Ideen  zur  Geschichte  der  Menschheit," 
Kant  says: 

X-  *  *  "Book  II,  treats  of  organized  matter  on  the  earth.  *  *  * 
The  beginnings  of  vegetation.  *  *  *  The  changes  suffered 
by  man  and  beast  through  climatic  influences.  *  *  *  In 
them  all  we  find  one  prevailing  form  and  a  similar  osseous 
structure.  *  *  *  These  transitional  links  render  it  not  at  all 
impossible  that  in  marme  animals,  in  plants,  and,  indeed, 
possibly  in  so-called  inanimate  substances,  one  and  the  same 
fundamental  principle  of  organization  may  prevail,  although 
infinitely  cruder  and  more  complex  in  operation.  In  the  sight 
of  eternal  being,  which  beholds  all  things  in  one  connection, 
it  is  possible  that  the  structure  of  the  ice-particle,  while  re- 
ceiving form,  and  of  the  snovvflake,  while  being  crystal- 
lized, bears  an  analogous  relation  to  the  formation  of  the 
embryo  in  a  mother's  womb.  *  *  *  The  third  book  com- 
pares the  structure  of  animals  and  plants  with  the  organization 
of  man.  *  *  *  it  was  not  because  man  was  ordained  to 
be  a  rational  creature  that  upright  stature  was  given  him  for 
using  his  limbs  according  to  reason;  on  the  contrary  he  ac- 
quired his  reason  as  a  consequence  of  his  upright  stature.  *  *  * 
From  stone  to  crystals,  from  crystals  to  metals,  from  metals 

♦  Wir  nehmen  die  Benennungen  Naturbeschreibung  und  Naturgeschichte 
gemeiniglich  in  einerlei  Sinne.  AUein  es  ist  klar,  dass  die  Kenntniss  der  Na- 
turdinge,  wie  siejetzt  sind,  immer  noch  die  Erkenntniss  von  demjenigen  wun- 
schen  lasse,  was  sie  ehedem  geweseti  sind  und  durch  welche  Reihe  von  Ver- 
anderungen  sie  durchgegangen,  um  an  jedem  Ort  in  ihren  gegenwartigen  Zustand 
zu  gelangen.  Die  Naturgeschichte,  woran  es  uns  noch  fast  ganzlich  fehlt,  wurde 
uns  die  Veranderung  der  Erdgestalt,  imgleichen  die  der  Erdgeschopfe  (Pflan- 
zen  und  Thiere),  die  sie  durch  naturliche  Wanderungen  (sici  I  take  it  as  a 
misprint  for  Wandelungen)  erlitten  haben,  und  ihre  daraus  entsprungenen 
Abartungen  von  dem  Urbilde  der  Stammgattung  lehren.  Sie  wiirde  ver- 
muthlich  eine  grosse  Menge  scheinbar  verschiedener  Arten  zu  Racen  eben- 
derselben  Gattung  zuruckfiihren,  und  das  jetzt  so  weitlauttigte  Schulsystem 
der  Naturbeschreibung  in  ein  physisches  System  fiir  den  Verstand  verwandeln. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT.  II 

to  plant-creation,  from  thence  to  the  animal,  and  ultimately  to 
man,  we  have  seen  the  form  of  organization  advancing,  and 
with  it  the  faculties  and  instincts  of  creatures  becoming  more 
diversified,  until  at  last  they  all  became  united  in  the  human 
form,  in  so  far  as  the  latter  could  comprise  them.  *  *  * 
As  the  body  increases  by  food,  so  does  the  mind  by  ideas:  in- 
deed, we  notice  here  the  same  laws  of  assimilation,  of  growth, 
and  of  generation.  In  a  word,  an  inner  spiritual  man  is  be- 
ing formed  within  us,  which  has  a  nature  of  its  own  and 
which  employs  the  body  as  an  instrument  merely.  *  *  * 
Our  humanity  is  merely  a  preliminary  trainmg.  the  bud  of  a 
blossom  to  come.  Step  by  step  does  nature  cast  off  the  igno- 
ble and  the  base,  while  it  builds  and  adds  to  the  spiritual 
and  continues  to  fashion  the  pure  and  refined  with  increasing 
niceness;  thus  are  we  in  a  position  to  hope  from  the  artist- 
hand  of  nature  that  in  that  other  existence  our  bud  of  hu- 
manity will  also  appear  in  its  real  and  true  form  of  divine 
manhood."     *     *    * 

[Herder's  idea  of  evolution  would  stand  on  the 
whole  if  his  conception  of  "the  spiritual"  did  not  im- 
ply a  preternatural  agent.] 

"The  present  state  of  man  is  probably  the  link  of  junction  be- 
tween two  worlds.     *    *    *     Yet  man  is  not  to  investigate 
himself  in  this  future  state;  he  is  to  believe  himself  into  it." 
Kant  makes  no  objection   whatever  to  the  evolu- 
tionary ideas  of   Herder.     But   Herder  was   not  free 
from    supernaturalism    and    from    fantastic    ideas    in 
reference  to  the  future  development  of  man.     He  had 
not    yet   dropped    the     dualistic    conception    of  the 
'duplicity'  of  man  and  believed   in  the  immortality  of 
a  distinct  spiritual  individual  within  his  body.     Kant's 
objection,  therefore,   is  twofold;   i)    against  Herder's 
supernaturalism  which   leads  him  beyond   this  world; 
and,  2)  against  the  descent  of  all  species  from  one  and 
and  the  same  genus.     He  says: 

"In    the    gradation    between    the    different    species     and     indi- 
viduals of  a  natural  kingdom,   nature  shows  us  nothing  else 


12  THE   ETHICS  OF   KANT. 

than  the  fact  that  it  abandons  individuals  to  total  destruction 
and  preserves  the  species  alone.  *  *  *  As  concerns  that 
invisible  kingdom  of  active  and  independent  forces,  we  fail  to 
see  why  the  author,  after  having  believed  he  could  confidently 
infer  from  organized  beings,  the  existence  of  the  rational  prin- 
ciple in  man  did  not  rather  attribute  this  principle  directly  to 
him  merely  as  spiritual  nature,  instead  of  lifting  it  out  of 
chaos  through  the  structural  form  of  organized  matter. 
*  *  *  As  to  the  gradation  of  organized  beings,  our  author 
is  not  to  be  too  severely  reproached,  if  the  scheme  has  not  met 
the  requirements  of  his  conception,  which  extends  so  far  be- 
yond the  limits  of  this  world;  for  its  application  even  to  the 
natural  kingdoms  here  on  earth  leads  to  nothing.  The  slight 
differences  exhibited  when  species  are  compared  with  refer- 
ence to  their  common  points  of  resemblance,  are,  where  there 
is  such  great  multiplicity,  a  necessary  consequence  of  just  this 
multiplicity.  The  assumption  of  common  kinship  between 
them,  inasmuch  as  one  kind  would  have  to  spring  from  another 
and  all  from  one  original  and  primitive  species,  or  from  one 
and  the  same  creative  source  (Mutterschoss) — the  assumption 
of  such  a  common  kinship  would  lead  to  ideas  so  strange  that 
reason  shrinks  from  them,  and  we  cannot  attribute  this  idea 
to  the  author  without  doing  him  injustice.  Concerning  his 
suggestions  in  comparative  anatomy  through  all  species 
down  to  plants,  the  workers  in  natural  science  must  judge  for 
themselves  whether  the  hints  given  for  new  observations, 
will  be  useful  and  whether  they  are  justified.  *  *  * 
It  is  desirable  that  our  ingenious  author  who  in  the  continu- 
ation of  his  work  will  find  more  terra  Jirma,  may  somewhat 
restrain  his  bright  genius,  and  that  philosophy  (which  consists 
rather  in  pruning  than  in  fostering  luxuriant  growth)  may 
lead  him  to  the  perfection  of  his  labors  not  through  hints  but 
through  definite  conceptions,  not  by  imagination  but  by  ob- 
servation, not  by  a  metaphysical  or  emotional  phantasy  but 
by  reason,  broad  in  its  plan  but  careful  in  its  work." 

Kant  rejected  certain  conceptions  of  evolution,  but 
he  did  not  at  all  show  himself  averse  to  the  idea  in 
general.  He  touched  upon  the  subject  only  incident- 
ally and  it  is  certain  that  he   did   not  especially  favor 


THE   ETHICS  OF   KANT.  I  3 

or  entertain  tlie  belief  in   a  non -evolutionary  origin  of 
living  beings. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  main  points  of  his  criti- 
cism, Mr.  Spencer  calls  attention  to  what  he  designates 
as  Kant's  ab?ior?nal  ved^somng.     Mr.  Spencer  says: 

"  Something  must  be  said  concerning  abnormal  reasoning  as 
"  compared  with  normal  reasoning."     *     *     * 

"  Instead  of  setting  out  with  a  proposition  of  which  the  nega- 
"  tion  is  inconceivable,  it  sets  out  with  a  proposition  of  which  the 
"  affirmation  is  inconceivable,  and  therefrom  proceeds  to  draw  con- 
"  elusions. "    *    *    * 

"  The  first  sentence  in  Kant's  first  chapter  runs  thus:  '  Noth- 
"  ing  can  possibly  be  conceived  in  the  world,  or  even  out  of  it, 
"which  can  be  called  good  without  qualification,  except  a  Good 
"Will."'    *    *    * 

"Most  fallacies  result  from  the  habit  of  using  words  without 
"fully  rendering  them  into  thoughts — passing  them  by  with  recog- 
"nitions  of  their  meanings  as  ordinarily  used,  without  stopping  to 
' '  consider  whether  these  meanings  admit  of  being  given  to  them  in 
"  the  cases  named.  Let  us  not  rest  satisfied  with  thinking  vaguely 
"of  what  is  understood  by  '  a  Good  Will,'  but  let  us  interpret  the 
"words  definitely.  Will  implies  the  consciousness  of  some  end  to 
"be  achieved.  E.xclude  from  it  every  idea  of  purpose,  and  the  con- 
"  ception  of  Will  disappears.  An  end  of  some  kind  being  necessa- 
"rily  implied  by  the  conception  of  Will,  the  quality  of  the  Will  is 
"determined  by  the  quality  of  the  end  contemplated.  Will  itself, 
' '  considered  apart  from  any  distinguishing  epithet,  is  not  cognizable 
"  by  Morality  at  all.  It  becomes  cognizable  by  Morality  only  when 
"  it  gains  its  character  as  good  or  bad  by  virtue  of  its  contemplated 
"  end  as  good  or  bad."     *     *     * 

"  Kant  tells  us  that  a  good  will  is  one  that  is  good  in  and  for 
"  itself  without  reference  to  ends." 

It  is  unfortunate  that  Mr.  Spencer  misunderstood 
the  first  sentence  of  Kant's  book  {Gruniiicgung  zur 
Meiaphysik  dcr  Sii/cn).  Kant  does  not  speak  of  "  a 
good  will  without  qualification,"  nor  does  the  expres- 
sion "  without  qualification"  refer  to  "  a  will  without 
reference    to   ends."       Kant    speaks  of   good  will  in 


14  THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT. 

opposition  to  other  good  things.  Nothing,  he  says, 
can  without  qualification  {ohne  Einschrdnkung)  be 
called  good,  except  a  good  will.*  Dr.  Porter  sums  up 
the  first  page  of  Kant's  essay  in  the  following  words: 
"The  first  section  of  the  treatise  opens  with  the  memorable 
and  often-quoted  utterance,  that  '  nothing  can  be  possibly  con- 
ceived in  the  world,  or  even  out  of  it,  which  can  be  called  good 
without  qualification,  except  a  good  will.'  If  character  is  com- 
pared with  gifts  of  nature,  as  intelligence,  courage,  and  gifts  of 
fortune,  as  riches,  health,  or  contentment,  all  these  are  defective, 
'  if  there  is  not  a  good  will  to  correct  their  possible  perversion  and 
to  rectify  the  whole  principle  of  acting,  and  adapt  it  to  its  end.'  \ 
A  man  who  is  endowed  with  every  other  good  can  never  give 
pleasure  to  an  impartial,  rational  spectator  unless  he  possesses  a 
good  will.  'Thus  a  good  will  appears  to  constitute  the  indispen- 
sable condition  of  being  worthy  of  happiness.'  *  *  *  'Moreover, 
a  good  will  is  good  not  for  what  it  effects  but  for  what  it  intends, 
even  when  it  fails  to  accomplish  its  purposes,  *  *  *  as  when 
the  man  wills  the  good  of  another  and  is  impotent  to  promote  it, 
or  actually  effects  just  the  opposite  of  what  he  proposes  or  wills.' " 
In  the  passages  quoted  by  Dr.  Porter,  Kant  speaks 
of  "the  e77d  to  which  good  will  adapts  other  goods  "; 
and  in  another  passage  of  the  same  book,  Kant  di- 
rectly declares  that  "  it  is  the  end  that  serves  the  will 
as  the  objective  ground  of  its  self-determination."  Mr. 
Spencer  must  have  overlooked  these  sentences.  Kant 
says: 

"The  will  is  conceived  as  a  power  of  determining  itself  to  action  in 
accordance  with  the  conception  of  certain  laws.  And  such  a 
power  can  only  be  met  with  in  rational  beings.  Now  it  is  the 
END  that  serves  the  will  as  the  objective  ground  of  its  self- 
determination,  and  this  end,  if  fixed  by  reason  alone,  must  hold 

equally  good  for  all  rational  creatures." 

* 
*  * 

Mr.  Spencer  interrupts  his  essay  on  the  Ethics  of 

*  The  original  of  the  first  sentence  reads:  "  Es  ist  uberall  nichts  in  der 
Welt,  ja  uberhaupt  auch  ausser  derselben  zu  denken  moglich,  was  ohne  Ein- 
schrSnkung  fur  gut  konnte  gehalten  werden,  als  allein  ein  guter  Wille." 

t  Italics  are  ours. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT.  15 

Kant  by  a  digression  on   Kant's   conception  of   time 

and   space.     It   would  lead    us    too     far    at    present 

if  we  would   follow  Mr.  Spencer  on   this  ground  also. 

A  comparison   of   Spencer's  remarks   on   the  subject 

with  Kant's  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason"  will  show  that 

Kant's  view  of   space   and   time  is  radically  different 

from   that  view  which   Mr.  Spencer  represents  as  the 

Kantian  conception  of  time  and  space. 

* 
Kant  rejects  the  idea  that  happiness  is  the  end  and 

purpose  of  life  and  at  the  same  time  he  declares  that 

ethics  must  be   based  not  on  the  pursuit  of   happiness 

but  on  the  categorical  imperative  or   more  popularly 

expressed  on  our  sense  of  duty. 

Mr.  Spencer  argues: 

"One  of  the  propositions  contained  in  Kant's  first  chapter  is 
"that  'we  find  that  the  more  a  cultivated  reason  applies  itself  with 
"deliberate  purpose  to  the  enjoyment  of  life  and  happiness,  so 
"much  the  more  does  the  man  fail  of  true  satisfaction."  "    »   *     * 

"That  which  Kant  should  have  said  is  that  the  exclusive  pur- 
"  suit  of  what  are  distinguished  as  pleasures  and  amusements  is  dis- 
"  appointing."     *    *    * 

"It  is  not,  as  Kant  says,  guidance  by  '  a  cultivated  reason,' 
"which  leads  to  disappointment,  but  guidance  by  an  uncultivated 
"  reason." 

The  passage   quoted   by  Mr.  Spencer  from    Kant, 
reads  in  its  context  as  follows: 
"In  the  physical  constitution  of  an  organized  being  we  take  it  for 

granted*  that  no  organ  for  any  purpose  will  be  found  in  it  but 

♦The  phrase  "  we  take  it  for  granted  "  (in  the  original  "  nehmen  wir  es  als 
Grundsatzan)"  reads  in  the  translation  quoted  by  Mr.  Spencer:  "we  take  it  as 
a  fundamental  principle."  Mr.  Spencer  objects  to  the  passage  declaring  that 
there  are  many  organs  (such  as  rudimentary  organs)  in  the  construction  of 
organized  beings  which  serve  no  purpose  This  however  does  not  stand  in 
contradiction  to  Kanfs  assumption  that  organs  of  organized  beings  serve  a 
special  purpose  The  rudimentary  organs  have  under  other  conditions  served 
a  purpose  for  which  they  then  were  fit  and  well  adapted  and  are  disappearing 
now  because  no  longer  used. 


l6  THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT. 

such  as  is  also  the  fittest  and  best  adapted  for  that  purpose. 
If  in  a  being  possessing  reason  and  will,  the  preservation, 
the  prosperity,  in  a  word,  the  happiness  of  that  being,  con- 
stituted the  actual  purpose  of  nature,  nature  had  certainly 
adopted  an  extremely  unwise  expedient  to  this  end,  had  it 
made  the  reason  of  that  being  the  executive  agent  of  its  pur- 
poses in  this  matter.  For  all  actions  that  it  had  to  perform 
with  this  end  in  view,  and  the  whole  rule  of  its  conduct,  would 
have  been  far  more  exactly  prescribed  by  instinct,  and  this 
end  would  have  been  far  more  safely  attained  by  this  means 
than  can  ever  take  place  through  the  instrumentality  of 
reason."    *     *     * 

"  As  a  matter  of  fact  we  find  that  the  more  a  cultivated  reason  occu- 
pies itself  with  the  purpose  of  enjoying  life  and  happiness,  the 
farther  does  the  person  possessing  it  recede  from  the  state  of 
true  contentment;  and  hence  there  arises  in  the  case  of  many, 
and  pre-eminently  in  the  case  of  those  most  experienced  in  the 
exercise  of  reason,  if  they  are  only  frank  enough  to  confess 
it,  a  certain  degree  of  misology  or  hate  of  reason;  for  after 
weighing  every  advantage  that  they  derive,  I  will  not  say  from 
the  invention  of  all  arts  facilitating  ordinary  luxury,  but  even 
from  the  sciences,  (which  after  all  are  in  their  eyes  a  lux- 
ury of  the  intellect,)  they  still  discover  that  virtually  they 
have  burdened  themselves  more  with  toil  and  trouble  than 
they  have  gained  in  point  of  happiness,  and  thus,  in  the  end, 
they  are  more  apt  to  envy  than  contemn  the  commoner  type 
of  men  who  are  more  immediately  subject  to  the  guidance  of 
natural  instinct  alone,  and  who  do  not  suffer  their  reason 
to  influence  in  any  great  degree  their  acts  and  omissions." 

Kant  uses  the  expression  "  cultivated  reason  "  not 
in  opposition  to  "uncultivated  reason,"  but  "to  in- 
stinct "  as  that  inherited  faculty  which  teaches  a  being 
to  live  in  accordance  with  nature  and  its  natural  con- 
ditions, without  the  interference  of  thought  and  re- 
flection. 

That  uncultivated  reason  would  lead  to  disappoint- 
ment, Kant  never  would  have  denied.  He  would  have 
added:  "  It  does  more,  it  leads  to  a  speedy  ruin." 


THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT.  I  7 

But  if  reason  does  not  produce  happiness,  what 
then  is  the  use  of  reason?  Kant  answers,  reason  pro- 
duces in  man  the  good  will. 

It  is  reason  which  enables  man  to  form  abstrac- 
tions, to  think  in  generalizations  and  to  conceive  the 
import  of  universal  laws.  When  his  will  deliberately 
and  consciously  conforms  to  universal  laws,  it  is  good. 
Kant  says: 

"Thus  will  (viz.  the  good  will)  can  not  be  the  sole  and  whole 
Good,  but  it  must  still  be  the  highest  Good  and  the  con- 
dition necessary  to  everything  else,  even  to  all  desire  of  hap- 
piness."    *    *    * 

"To  know  what  I  have  to  do  in  order  that  my  volition  be  good, 
requires  on  my  part  no  far-reaching  sagacity.  Unexperienced 
in  respect  of  the  course  of  nature,  unable  to  be  prepared  for 
all  the  occurrences  transpiring  therein,  I  simply  ask  myself: 
Can'st  thou  so  will,  that  the  maxim  of  thy  conduct  may  become 
a  universal  law?  vVhere  it  can  not  become  a  universal  law, 
there  the  maxim  of  thy  conduct  is  reprehensible,  and  that, 
too,  not  by  reason  of  any  disadvantage  consequent  there- 
upon to  thee  or  even  others,  but  because  it  is  not  fit  to  enter  as 
a  principle  into  a  possible  enactment  of  universal  laws." 

If  a  maxim  of  conduct  is  fit  to  enter  as  a  principle 
into  a  possible  enactment  of  universal  laws,  it  will  be 
found  in  harmony  with  the  cosmical  laws;  if  not,  it 
must  come  in  conflict  with  the  order  of  things  in  the 
universe.  It  then  cannot  stand,  and  will,  if  persist- 
ently adhered  to,  lead  (perhaps  slowly  but  inevitably) 
to  certain  ruin. 

Concerning  the  proposition  that  happiness  may 
be  regarded  as  the  purpose  of  life  Kant  in  his  review 
of  Herder's  "Ideen  zur  Philosophic  der  Geschichte 
der  Menschheit"  Ed.  H.  IV,  p.  190),  speaks  of  the 
relativity  of  happiness  and  its  insufficiency  as  a  final 
aim  of  life: 


l8  THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT. 

*  *  *  "  First  of  all  the  happiness  of  an  animal,  then  that  of  a 
child  and  of  a  youth,  and  lastly  that  ofman!  In  all  epochs  of 
human  history,  as  well  as  among  all  classes  and  conditions  of 
the  same  epoch,  that  happiness  has  obtained  which  was  in 
exact  conformity  with  the  individual's  ideas  and  the  degree  of 
his  habituation  to  the  conditions  amid  which  he  was  born  and 
raised.  Indeed,  it  is  not  even  possible  to  form  a  comparison 
of  the  degree  of  happiness  nor  to  give  precedence  to  one  class 
,'  of  men  or  to  one  generation  over  another.  *  *  *  if  this 
shadow-picture  of  happiness.  . .  .were  the  actual  aim  of  Provi- 
dence, every  man  would  have  the  measure  of  his  own  happi- 
ness within  him.  *  *  *  Does  the  author  (Herder)  think 
perhaps  that,  if  the  happy  inhabitants  of  Otaheite  had  never 
been  visited  by  more  civilized  peoples  and  were  ordained  to 
live  in  peaceful  indolence  for  thousands  of  years  to  come  — 
that  we  could  give  a  satisfactory  answer  to  the  question  why 
they  should  exist  at  all  and  whether  it  would  not  have  been 
just  as  well  that  this  island  should  be  occupied  by  happy  sheep 
and  cattle  as  that  it  should  be  inhabited  by  men  who  are  happy 
only  through  pure  enjoyment?" 

Concerning  the  mission  or  purpose  of  humanity 
and  its  ultimate  realization,  Kant  interprets  Herder's 
views  as  follows: 

"It  involves  no  contradiction  to  say  that  no  individual  member  of 
all  the  offspring  of  the  human  race,  but  that  only  the  species, 
fully  attains  its  mission  (Bestimmung).     The  mathematician 
may  explain  the  matter  in  his  way.     The  philosopher  would 
say:  the  mission  of  the  human  race  as  a  whole  is  unceasing 
progress,  and  the  perfection  (Vollendung)  of  this  mission  is  a 
mere  idea  (although  in  every  aspect  a  quite  useful  one)  of  the 
aim  towards  which,  in  conformity  with   the  design  of  provi- 
dence, we  are  to  direct  our  endeavors." 
We  learn  from   the  passages    quoted  from   Kant 
that  his  idea  of  good  will  is  neither  mystical  and  su- 
pernatural, nor  is  it  vague.     It  is  a  conception  as  logi- 
cally and  definitely  defined   as  any  mathematical  defi- 
nition.    Good  will  in  the  sense  in  which  Kant  defines 
it,  is  only  possible  in  a  reasonable  being  by  the  power 


THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT.  I9 

of  its  reason.  The  good  will  is  the  intention  of  con- 
forminff  to  universal  principles  and  thus  of  being  in 
harmony  with  the  All.  This  good  will  is  the  corner- 
stone of  Kant's  ethics;  it  appears  as  the  categoric  im- 
perative of  duty,  so  to  act  that  the  maxim  of  one's 
conduct  may  be  fit  to  become  a  universal  law.  It  is 
formulated  in  another  passage:  "  Act  soas  if  the  maxim  JjJul^ 
of  thy  conduct  by  thy  volition  were  to  become  a  natural 
law." 

It  is  easily  seen  that,  in  Kant's  conception,  the 
ought  of  morals  (viz.  of  the  categoric  imperative)  does 
not  stand  in  contradiction  to  the  t?iusi  of  natural  laws. 
Kant's  conception  is  monistic,  not  dualistic.  Kant 
says: 

"The  moral  ought  is  man's  inner,  necessary  volition  as  being 
a  member  of  an  intelligible  world  and  is  conceived  by  him  as  an 
ought  only  in  so  far  as  he  considers  himself  also  as  a  member  of 
the  sensory  world."* 

Our  way  of   explaining  it  would   be:    Man  ftwls  in 

his    activity    the  categoric  imperative   as   an    ought. 

So  the  snow  crystal,  if  it  were  possessed  of  sensation, 

would  feel  its  formation   as  an  "ought."     But   both 

are,and  to  an  outside  observerwill  appear,  as  a  "must." 

* 
*  * 

In  the  Spencerian  system  of  ethics,  which  is  utili- 
tarianism, the  moral  maxim  or  the  idea  of  duty  is  not 
distinguished  from  the  feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain 
that  accompanies  ethical  thoughts  and  acts,  and 
their  consequences.  This  lack  of  distinction  induces 
Mr.  Spencer  to  consider  man's  pursuit  of  happiness  as 
the  basis  of  ethics.     Accordingly  the  aim  of  ethics,  he 

*  Das  moralische  SoUen  ist  also  ein  eigenes  nothwendises  Wollen  als 
Gliedes  einer  intelligiblen  Welt,  und  wird  nur  sofern  von  ihm  als  Sollen  ge- 
dacht,  als  er  sich  zugleich  wie  ein  died  der  Sinnenwell  bctrachtet.  Ed.  Har- 
tenstein  vol  IV.  p.  303. 


20  THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT. 

maintains,  is  not  the  performance  of  duty,  not  the  re- 
alization of  the  good;  to  the  utilitarian  this  is  only  the 
means.  The  end  of  ethics  is  the  greatest  happiness  of 
the  greatest  number. 

It  is  strange  that  Mr.  Spencer's  essay  contains  a 
passage  which,  although  intended  as  a  point  of  objec- 
tion to  Kant,  is  a  corroboration  of  Kant's  ethics,  and 
a  refutation  of  Mr.  Spencer's  own  views.  While  de- 
nying the  statement  that  "a  cultivated  reason,  if  ap- 
plied with  deliberate  purpose  to  the  enjoyment  of  life 
and  happiness,  will  fail  to  produce  true  satisfaction," 
Mr.  Spencer  says: 

"  I  assert  that  it  is  untrue  on  the  strength  of  personal  experi- 
"  ences.  In  the  course  of  my  life  there  have  occurred  many  in- 
"  tervals,  averaging  a  month  each,  in  which  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
"  ness  was  the  sole  object,  and  in  which  happiness  was  success- 
"  fully  pursued.  How  successfully  may  be  judged  from  the  fact 
' '  that  I  would  gladly  live  over  again  each  of  those  periods 
' '  without  change,  an  assertion  which  I  certainly  cannot  make  of 
"any  portions  of  my  life  spent  in  the  daily  discharge  of  duties." 

This  statement,  if  it  proves  anything,  proves  that 
happiness  is  one  thing  and  duty  is  another;  it  proves 
that  Kant's  theory  of  ethics,  which  is  based  on  the 
discharge  of  duty  and  not  on  the  pursuit  of  happiness, 
is  correct,  and  that  Mr.  Spencer's  theory  which  iden- 
tifies duty  with  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  is  wrong. 

However,  we  must  in  this  place  express  our  opin- 
ion that  Mr.  Spencer's  statement  cafinot  be  quite 
correct.  The  discharge  of  duty,  unpleasant  though 
the  drudgery  part  of  it  may  have  been,  was  un- 
doubtedly accompanied  and  followed  by  a  certain  sat- 
isfaction, which  perhaps  was  less  in  quantity,  but  cer- 
tainly higher  in  quaHty  than  the  pleasure  derived  from 
the  mere  pursuit  of  happiness.  And  in  the  valuation 
of  the  intrinsic  and  of  the  moral  worth  of  pleasures,  the 


THE  ETHICS  OK  KANT.  21 

quality  alone  should  be  taken  into  consideration,  not 
the  quantity.  In  this  sense  only  can  an  ethical  hedon- 
ism or  utilitarianism  be  acceptable.  The  man  whose 
pleasures  and  pains  are  of  a  higher  kind,  of  a  nobler 
form,  and  of  a  better  quality,  is  morally  and  generally 
the  more  evolved  man.  And  then,  the  basis  of  ethics 
would  be,  not  so  much  pleasure  or  happiness  as  the 
quality  of  pleasure  or  happiness;  it  would  be  an  as- 
piration to  evolve  toward  a  higher  plane  of  life,  to 
shape  our  lives  in  nobler  forms,  and  to  enjoy  nobler, 
greater,  and  more  spiritual  pleasures,  or,  as  Kant  says, 
"  unceasing  progress." 

Mr.  Spencer's  assertion,  if  taken  in  the  sense  in 
which  it  stands,  is  a  contradiction  of  his  ethical  theory. 
But  even  if  Mr.  Spencer  had  declared  that  the  discharge 
of  duty  affords  a  kind  of  happiness  or  satisfaction, 
as  it  truly  does,  there  would  still  remain  a  deep  gap 
between  his  and  Kant's  ethics.  Mr.  Spencer  reduces 
ethics  to  mere  worldl}^  prudence;  he  says  that  we 
must  do  the  good  in  order  to  be  happy,  and  for  the 
sake  of  its  utility,  and  Kant  says  we  must  act  so  as  to  be 
in  agreement  with  universal  law.     Mr.  Spencer  says  : 

"But  now,  supposing  we  accept  Kant's  statement  in  full, 
"what  is  its  implication?  That  happiness  is  the  thing  to  be 
"  desired,  and,  in  one  way  or  another,  the  thing  to  be 
"achieved."     *     *     * 

"  An  illustration  will  best  show  how  the  matter  stands.  To  a 
"tyro  in  archery  the  instructor  says:  'Sir,  you  must  not  point 
"your  arrow  directly  at  the  target;  if  you  do,  you  will  inevitably 
"miss  it;  you  must  aim  high  above  the  target,  and  you  may  then 
"possibly  pierce  the  bull's-eye.'  What  now  is  implied  by  the 
"warning  and  the  advice?  Clearly  that  the  purpose  is  to  hit  the 
"target.  Otherwise  there  is  no  sense  in  the  remark  that  it  will 
"be  missed  if  directly  aimed  at;  and  no  sense  in  the  remark  that 
"to  be  hit,  something  higher  must  be  aimed  at.  Similarly  with 
"  happiness.     There  is  no  sense  in  the  remark  that  happiness  will 


22  THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT. 

"not  be  found  if  it  is  directly  sought,  unless  happiness  is  a  thing 
"to  be  somehow  or  other  obtained."     *     *     * 

"  So  that  in  this  professed  repudiation  of  happiness  as  an  end, 
"there  lies  the  inavoidab'e  implication  that  it  is  the  end." 

The  pursuit  of  happiness  is  by  no  means  repudi- 
ated by  Kant  as  wrong  or  immoral;  it  is  only  main- 
tained to  be  insufficient  as  a  foundation  of  ethics. 
Kant's  remark  that  happiness  will  not  be  found  if  it  is 
directly  sought  has  no  reference  to  his  own  ethics. 
Kant,  speaking  from  the  standpoint  of  one  who  takes 
the  view  of  utilitarianism,  says  that  if  a  cultivated 
reason  applies  itself  to  the  sole  purpose  of  enjoying  life 
and  happiness,  it  will  meet  with  a  failure.* 

Any  other  explanation  of  the  moral  ought  than  that 
from  the  Good  Will,  Kant  declares  to  be  heteronomy. 
Will  would  no  longer  be  itself,  and  the  principle  of 
action  would  lie  in  something  foreign  to  the  will. 
Kant  says: 

"Will  in  such  a  case  would  not  be  a  law  to  itself;  but  the  object 
by  its  relation  to  the  will  would  impose  the  law  upon  the 
will."  *  *  *  This  would  admit  of  hypothetical  impera- 
tives only :  "I  ought  to  do  a  certain  thing,  because  I  want  some- 
thing else."  The  moral  and  therefore  categorical  imperative, 
on  the  contrary,  says:  '  I  ought  to  act  so  or  so,  even  if  I  had 
nothing  else  in  view.'  For  instance:  the  hypothetical  impera- 
tive of  heteronomy  says:  'I  ought  not  to  lie,  if  I  ever  wish  to 
preserve  my  honor.'  The  categorical  imperative  says:  '  I  ought 
not  to  lie  even  if  it  would  not  in  the  least  bring  me  to  shame.'  " 

Mr.    Spencer  quotes  the  following  passage    from 

Kant: 

"I  omit  here  all  actions  which  are  already  recognized  as  incon- 
sistent with  duty,  although  they  may  be  useful  for  this  or  that 
purpose,  for  with  these  the  question  whether  they  are  done 
from  duty  can  not  arise  at  all,  since  they  even  conflict  with 
it.   I  also  set  aside  those  actions  which  really  conform  to  duty, 

*  The  passage  referred  to  is  quoted  in  full  on  page  i6. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT.  2$ 

but  to  which  men  have  no  direct  inclination,  performing  them 
because  they  are  impelled  thereto  by  some  other  inclination. 
For  in  this  case  we  can  readily  distinguish  whether  the  action 
which  agrees  with  duty  is  done  from  duty,  or  from  a  selfish 
view.  It  is  much  harder  to  make  this  distinction  when  the 
action  accords  with  duty,  and  the  subject  has  besides  a  direct 
inclination  to  it.  For  example,  it  is  always  a  matter  of  duty 
that  a  dealer  should  not  overcharge  an  inexperienced  pur- 
chaser, and  wherever  there  is  much  commerce  the  prudent 
tradesman  does  not  overcharge,  but  keeps  a  fixed  price  for 
every  one,  so  that  a  child  buys  of  him  as  well  as  any  other. 
Men  are  thus  honestly  served;  but  this  is  not  enough  to  make 
us  believe  that  the  tradesman  has  so  acted  from  duty  and 
from  principles  of  honesty:  his  own  advantage  required  it; 
it  .8  out  of  the  question  in  this  case  to  suppose  that  he  might 
besides  have  a  direct  inclination  in  favor  of  the  buyers,  so  that, 
as  it  were,  from  love  he  should  give  no  advantage  to  one  over 
another  [!].  Accordingly  the  action  was  done  neither  from 
duty  nor  from  direct  inclination,  but  merely  with  a  selfish  view. 

"On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  duty  to  maintain  one's  life,  and,  in 
addition,  every  one  has  also  a  direct  inclination  to  do  so. 
But  on  this  account  the  often  anxious  care  which  most  men 
take  for  it  has  no  intrinsic  worth,  and  their  maxim  has  no 
moral  import.  They  preserve  their  life  as  duty  requires,  no 
doubt,  but  not  because  duty  requires.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
adversity  and  hopeless  sorrow  have  completely  taken  away 
the  relish  for  life;  if  the  unfortunate  one,  strong  m  mind,  in- 
dignant at  his  fate  rather  than  desponding  or  dejected,  wishes 
for  death,  and  yet  preserves  his  life  without  loving  it — not 
from  inclination  or  fear,  but  from  duty — then  his  maxim  has 
a  moral  worth. 

"To  be  beneficent  when  we  can  is  a  duty;  and  besides  this,  there 
are  many  minds  so  sympathetically  constituted  that  without 
any  other  motive  of  vanity  or  selt-interest,  they  find  a  pleas- 
ure in  spreading  joy  around  them,  and  can  take  delight  in 
the  satisfaction  of  others  so  far  as  it  is  their  own  work.  But 
1  maintain  that  in  such  a  case  an  action  of  this  kind,  how- 
ever proper,  however  amiable  it  may  be,  has  nevertheless  no 
true  moral  worth,  but  is  on  a  level  with  other  inclinations  " 
(PP    17-19) 


24  THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT. 

Kant's  metaphysics  of  ethics  is  to  practical  ethics 
what  pure  mathematics  is  to  applied  mathematics,  or 
what  logic  is  to  grammar.  Kant's  method  of  reason- 
ing /;/  abstracto  everywhere  shows  the  mathematical 
bent  of  his  mind.  In  a  foot-note  (Editio  Hartenstein, 
IV),  p.  258,  he  says: 

' '  As  pure  mathematics  is  distinguished  from  applied  mathematics 
and  pure  logic  from  applied  logic,  so  may  the  pure  philosophy 
(the  metaphysics)  of  ethics  be  distinguished  from  the  applied 
philosophy  of  ethics,  that  is,  as  applied  to  human  nature.  By 
this  distinction  of  terms  it  at  once  appears  that  ethical  princi- 
ples are  not  based  upon  the  peculiaiities  of  human  nature  but 
that  they  must  be  existent  by  themselves  a  priori, — whence, 
for  human  nature,  just  as  well  as  for  any  rational  nature, 
practical  rules  can  be  derived." 

Schleiermacher  says: 

"A  good  is  any  agreement  ("unity")  of  definite  sides  [cer- 
tain aspects]  of  reason  and  nature.  *  *  *  The  end  of  tthical 
praxis  is  the  highest  good,  i.  e.,  the  sum  of  all  unions  of  nature 
and  reason.  *  *  *  The  moral  law  may  be  compared  to  the 
algebraic  formula  which  (in  analytical  geometry)  determines  the 
course  [path]  of  a  curve;  the  highest  good  may  be  compared  to 
the  curve  itself,  and  virtue,  or  moral  power,  to  an  instrument  ar- 
ranged for  the  purpose  of  constructing  the  curve  according  to 
the  formula."     (Quoted  from  a  translation  of  Ueberweg.) 

Kant  declares  in  other  passages  that  in  examples 
taken  from  practical  life,  it  will  be  difficult  to  separate 
clearly  and  unmistakably  the  sense  of  duty  as  the  real 
moral  motive  from  other  motives,  inclinations,  habits, 
etc.  But  such  a  distinction  must  be  made,  if  the  moral 
value  of  motives  is  to  be  considered  in  abstracto. 
This  is  necessary  for  a  clear  conception  of  the  essen- 
tial features  of  morality.  Mr.  Spencer  has  on  other 
occasions  highly  praised  the  power  of  generalization, 
which  indeed  is  fundamentally  the  same  faculty,  as 
thinking  in  abstracto;  here,  however,  he  does  not  follov^ 


THF.   ETHICS  OF   KANT.  25 

Kant's  argument,  but  declares  "that  the  assumed  dis- 
tinction between  sense  of  duty  and  inclination  is  un- 
tenable."    He  says: 

"The  very  expression  sense  of  duty  implies  that  the  mental 
"state  signified  is  a  feeling;  and  if  a  feeling  it  must,  like  other  feel- 
"ings,  be  gratified  by  acts  of  one  kind  and  offended  by  acts  of  an 
"  opposite  kind.  If  we  take  the  name  conscience,  which  is  equiva- 
"  lent  to  sense  of  duty,  we  see  the  same  thing.  The  common  ex- 
"pressions  'a  tender  conscience,'  'a  seared  conscience, '  indicate  the 
"perception  that  conscience  is  a  feeling — a  feeling  which  has  its 
"  satisfactions  and  dissatisfactions,  and  which  imiines  a.  mzn  to  acts 
"which  yield  the  one  and  avoid  the  other — produces  an  incli- 
" nation,"  (p.  476). 

It  is  quite  true  that  every  state  of  consciousness 
is  a  feeling,  but  we  can  and  must  discriminate  between 
consciousness  or  feeling  and  the  idea  or  thought  which 
becomes  conscious,  in  which  the  feeling  appears,  and 
which  is,  so  to  speak,  the  special  form  of  a  certain 
feeling.  The  consciousness  and  its  special  form,  the 
feeling  and  the  mental  object  of  feeling,  are  in  reality 
one  and  the  same.  Yet  they  are  different  and  must 
in  abstracto  be  well  distinguished.  Mr.  Spencer's 
method  is  that  of  generalization,  but  generalizing  can 
lead  to  no  satisfactory  results,  if  it  is  not  constantly 
accompanied  by  discrimination.  We  must  generalize 
and  discriminate. 

If  a  certain  group  of  states  of  consciousness  takes  the 
form  of  a  logical  syllogism,  it  must  not  be  expected  that 
logic  will  find  its  explanation  in  feeling,  although  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  all  the  states  of  consciousness 
are  feelings.  Not  the  feeling  in  this  case  is  to  be  ex- 
plained, but  logic.  In  our  generalizations  we  must 
discriminate  in  abstracto  between  the  feeling  and  the 
idea  which  feels.  We  must  positively  abstract  from 
feeling  and  cannot  consider  whether  the  feeling  of  log- 


26  THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT. 

ical  arguments  is  pleasant  or  unpleasant.  Mr.  Spencer's 
method  of  explaining  ethics,  if  applied  to  logic,  would 
be  as  follows:  "Man's  logical  sense  is  a  very  complex 
feeling  and  has  developed  from  simple  percepts  such 
as  can  be  observed  in  the  lowest  animals;  percepts 
are  a  higher  evolved  form  of  reactions  against  irrita- 
tions such  as  take  place  in  protoplasm.  The  old 
method  of  explaining  logic  is  that  of  deduction,  mod- 
ern logic  will  be  inductive.  Formerly  pure  logic  was 
considered  as  a  science  a  priori;  but  the  evolution- 
philosophy  shows  that  logic  is  developed  by  steps, 
it  appears  a  priori  to  the  individual  now,  but  it  is  in 
reality  a  consolidated  product  of  multitudinous  expe- 
riences received  mainly  by  ancestors  and  added  to  by 
self.  Logical  sense  accordingly  finds  its  explanation  in 
most  simple  feelings.  Our  conceptions  of  logically 
incorrect  feelings  will  be  more  and  more  avoided  be- 
cause they  will  ultimately  be  found  to  be  unpleasant; 
logical  correctness  is  striven  for  because  of  the  feeling 
of  satisfaction  that  accompanies  the  conception  of  a 
logically  correct  conclusion." 

Sense  is  feeling,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  Logical 
sense  and  mathematical  sense  are  feelings  and  if  a 
person  thinks  a  mathematical  axiom  or  a  logical  syl- 
logism or  an  ethical  maxim,  he  has  a  feeling.  Logical 
sense  of  reason  is  the  product  of  evolution,  and  it 
cannot  be  denied  either  that  one  man  has  a  more  logical 
or  mathematical  or  moral  sense  than  another.  But  it 
does  not  follow  that  an  explanation  of  mathematics, 
or  logic,  or  ethics,  must  be  derived  from  feeling 
pleasure  and  pain,  or  happiness.  On  the  contrary  we 
must  abstract  from  feeling  altogether  and  concern 
ourselves  with  the  object  of  feeling  only,  which  is  the 
idea  or  the  special  form  in  which  and  as  which  feeling 


THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT.  VJ 

appears.  States  of  consciousness  (never  mind  whether 
they  are  painful  or  pleasurable)  must  be  considered  as 
moral  if  their  mental  object,  /.  <?.,  the  idea,  the  thought, 
the  motive,  the  form  in  which  feeling  becomes  mani- 
fest, is  in  harmony  with  the  universal  order  of  things. 

*  * 

Mr.  Spencer  declares  that  the  world  would  be 
intolerable  "if  Kant's  conception  of  moral  worth 
were  displayed  universally  in  men's  acts."  And  it 
must  be  acknowledged  that  Kant's  ethics  in  their  logi- 
cal and  irrefutable  rigidity  not  only  impressed  the  lit- 
erary world  of  his  time  with  the  grandeur  and  sub- 
limity of  ethics;  Kant's  ethics  also  astounded,  and 
overwhelmed  his  readers  with  awe.  Virtue  no  longer 
appeared  to  be  the  fervid  enthusiasm  of  sentiments; 
it  congealed  into  the  cold  idea  of  duty  which  can 
be  fixed  in  abstract  rules  and  will  operate  like  the  cor- 
rectly calculated  gear  of  a  machine.  Objections  have 
been  raised  by  some  of  Kant's  own  disciples;  but  it 
must  be  known  that  the  Kantian  view  of  ethics  does 
not  suppress  feelings,  emotions  and  inclinations,  it  ex- 
cludes them  only  from  an  estimation  of  the  moral 
worth  of  actions.  Kant  gave  the  coup  de  grace  to  all 
sentimentality  which  had  taken  the  lead  in  ethical 
questions  too  long.     Mr.  Spencer  says: 

"If  those  acts  only  have  moral  worth  which  are  done  from 
"a  sense  of  duty  *  *  *  we  must  say  that  a  man's  moral 
"worth  is  greater  in  proportion  as  the  strength  of  his  sense  of 
"duty  is  such  that  he  does  the  right  thing  not  only  apart  from 
"inclination  but  against  inclination.  According  to  Kant,  then, 
"the  most  moral  man  is  the  man  *  *  *  who  says  of  another 
"  that  which  is  true  though  he  would  like  to  injure  him  by  a  false- 
"hood;  who  lends  money  to  his  brother  though  he  would  prefer  to 
"see  him  in  distress." 

Schiller,  although  an    admirer  of  Kant,  makes    in 


28  THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT. 

his  Xenions  a  similar  objection  to  this  corollary  of  the 
ethics  of  pure  reason.     He  sa3's: 

"  willingly  serve  I  my  friends;  but  'tis  pity,  I  do  it  with  pleasure. 
And  I  am  really  vexed,  that  there's  no  virtue  in  me!" 

And  he  answers  in  a  second  distich: 

"There  is  no  other  advice  than  that  you  try  to  despise  friends, 
And,  with  disgust,  you  will  do  what  such  a  duty  demands." 

The  difTiculty  is  removed  under  the  following  con- 
sideration: A  man  with  good  inclinations  is  less  ex- 
posed to  temptation  than  a  man  with  bad  inclinations. 
If  both  act  morally  under  conditions  otherwise  the 
same,  the  latter  has  shown  greater  strength  of  moral 
purpose  than  the  former.  The  former's  character  (viz., 
his  inherited  inclinations  and  habits  which  represent 
the  sum  total  of  the  moral  energies  of  his  ancestors,) 
is  more  moral  than  that  of  the  latter.  But  the  latter 
deserves  more  credit  than  the  former  for  overcom- 
ing the  temptation;  he  has  in  this  special  act  shown 
more  moral  strength  of  will  than  his  more  fortunate 
and  morally  higher  advanced  fellow-man.  To  those 
who  have  accepted  the  Kantian  view,  Mr.  Spencer's 
and  Schiller's  objection  can  serve  as  a  warning,  not  to 
lose  sight  of  emotions  altogether.  Man  is  not  only  a 
reasonable  being,  he  is  at  the  same  time  a  feeling 
creature.  The  instinctive  faculties  of  man,  the  so- 
called  subconscious  states,  are  the  basis  of  his  con- 
sciousness. They  form  the  roots  of  his  soul  from 
which  spring  the  clear  conceptions  of  his  reason.  The 
more  man's  habits  and  inclinations  agree  with  morals, 
the  more  strength  of  purpose  is  left  for  further  ethical 
advancement  and  moral  progress. 

Similar  objections  have  also  been  made  to  Kant's 
mechanical  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  planetary 
systems  and  milky  ways.     It  seemed  as  if  the  divit?' 


THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT.  29 

ity  of  nature  were  replaced  by  the  rigid  law  of  grav- 
ity. In  his  poem  "The  God's  of  Greece,"  Schiller 
complains: 

"  Fuhllosselbst  fQr  ihres  KQnstlers  Ehre, 
Gleichdem  todten  Schlag  der  Pendeluhr, 
Dient  sie  knechtisch  dem  Gesetz  der  Schwere, 
Die  entgOtterte  Natur." 

"  Dead  even  to  her  Master's  praise, 
Like  lifeless  pendulum's  vibration, 
Lo,  godless  Nature  now  obeys, 
Slave-like,  the  law  of  gravitation."  ♦ 

Such  objections  are  always  raised  when  a  scientific 
explanation  destroys  the  mystic  view  that  a  spirit  or 
at  least  something  unexplainable  is  the  supposed 
cause  of  certain  phenomena.  Our  sentiments  are  so 
closely  connected  and  intimately  interwoven  with  our 
errors  that  truth  appears  hostile  to  sentiment,  and  it 
becomes  difficult  to  part  with  errors  sanctified  by 
emotion.  Sentimentality  always  complains  that  clear 
thought  is  an  enemy  of  romanticism,  and  romanticism 
is  the  only  possible  poetry  to  the  taste  of  the  senti- 
mental. 

Now  it  cannot  be  denied  that  a  one-sided 
knowledge  not  only  appears  rigid,  it  truly  is  so,  and  will 
be  destructive  of  such  emotions  as  reverence,  awe, 
aesthetic  taste,  religion  and  art.  Criticism  is  a  most 
essential  feature  of  science  and  philosophy,  and  how 
negative,  how  desolate  and  melancholy  appear  the 
results  of  criticism!  But  the  pruning  process  of  crit- 
icism is  very  wholesome,  and  true  science  will  only 
profit  by  discarding  the  vagueness  of  indistinct  concep- 
tions. Alpine  lakes  that  are  really  deep  can  only  gain 
by  lucidity.  Thus  the  clearness  of  genuine  science 
and  broad  philosophy  will  only  show  the  depth  of 
truth  into  which  by  all   its  lucidity  our  emotions  can 

♦  Slightly  altered  from  B.  W.  Ball's  translation  in  The  Open  Coi;rt,  p.  83. 


30  THE  ETHICS  OF  KANT. 

plunge  without  ever  finding  it  shallow  or  fathoming 
it  in  all  its  profundity. 

Agnosticism  is  like  a  shallow  mud-puddle  in  which 
short-sized  men  can  wade  without  fear  of  ever  going 
beyond  their  depth.  When  the  waters  are  disturbed 
one  cannot  see  the  bottom,  and  the  pool  gains  the  ap- 
pearance of  unfathomable  profundity.  Mr.  Spencer, 
as  we  shall  see  in  the  third  article  of  this  booklet, 
confounds  the  basic  ideas  involved  in  the  problems  of 
philosophy  and  renders  the  clearest  conceptions  in- 
scrutable and  mysterious.  When  all  issues  are  mixed 
up  in  inextricable  confusion,  he  exults  with  joy  and 
concludes  that  everything  is  absolutely  unknowable. 

* 

*  * 

Kant's  doctrine  of  ethics  is  a  truth  that  can  stand 
the  severest  test. 

Ethics,  in  the  sense  of  the  word  as  used  by  Kant, 
can  be  found  in  man  only,  in  so  far  as  he  is  a  reason- 
able being.  A  truly  reasonable  being  does  not  allow 
himself  to  be  guided  by  impulses  but  is  led  by  max- 
ims. Inclinations  and  habits  are  remnants  of  instinct. 
Not  he  who  in  instinctive  good  naturedness  acts  mor- 
ally, is  the  ethical  man,  but  he  who  deliberately  and 
consciously  considers  himself  a  representative  of  the 
general  order  of  things.  The  man  who  adopts  such 
maxims  as  can  become  universal  principles,  identifies 
his  will  with  the  laws  of  the  universe.  Man's  moral 
dignity  must  not  be  sought  in  vague  feelings  or  in  in- 
stinctive inspirations  ;  it  is  based  upon  his  reason  and 
is  developed  in  so  far  only  as  he  makes  use  of  his 
reason. 


KANT  ON  EVOLUTION. 


TT  is  very  strange  that  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  will  again 
•*•  and  again  attack  the  philosophy  and  ethics  of 
Kant  for  views  which  Kant  never  held.*  It  is  pos- 
sible that  there  are  disciples  of  Kant  who  deny  the 
theory  of  evolution.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  Kant  him- 
self is  not  guilty  of  this  mistake.  Thinkers  who  re- 
ject the  theory  of  evolution  are  in  this  respect  as  little 
entitled  to  call  themselves  disciples  of  Kant  as,  for 
instance,  the  Sadducees  were  to  call  themselves  follow- 
ers of  Christ.  Kantian  philosophy  was  foremost  in  the 
recognition  of  the  need  of  evolution,  and  that  at  a  time 
when  public  interest  was  not  as  yet  centered  upon  it. 

Mr.  Spencer's  merits  in  the  propagation  of  the  theory 
of  evolution  are  undeniable,  and  he  deserves  our  warm- 
est respect  and  thanks  for  the  indefatigable  zeal  he  has 
shown  in  the  performance  of  this  great  work,  for  the 
labors  he  has  undergone,  and  the  sacrifices  he  has  made 
for  it.  Yet  recognising  all  that  Mr.  Spencer  has  done, 
we  should  not  be  blind  to  the  fact  that  Kant's  concep- 
tion of  evolution  is  even  at  the  present  day  more  in 
conformity  with  the  facts  of  natural  science  than  Mr. 
Spencer's  philosophy,  although  the  latter  commonly 
goes  by  the  name  of  the  philosophy  of  evolution. 

It  is  painful  to  note  that  in  many  places  where  Mr. 
Spencer  refers  to  Kant's  philosophy,  he  does  it  slight- 
ingly, as  though  Kant  were  one  of  the  most  irrational 
of  thinkers.  Kant's  reasoning  is  denounced  as  "ab- 
normal" and  "vicious."     I  find  such  phrases  as,  "It 

•  See  Mr,  Spencer's  article  in  Mind,  No.  LIX,  p.  313. 


32  KANT  ON  EVOLUTION. 

is  a  vice  of  Kant's  philosophy  .  .  .  .,"  "If  Kant  had 
known  more  of  Man  than  he  did  .  .  .  .,"  etc.  Mr. 
Spencer  characterises  Kant's  method  as  follows  : 

"  Instead  of  setting  out  with  a  proposition  of  which  the  nega- 
tive is  inconceivable,  it  sets  out  with  a  proposition  of  which  the 
affirmation  is  inconceivable,  and  proceeds  to  draw  conclusions 
therefrom." 

These  attacks  of  Mr.  Spencer  on  Kant  are  not  jus- 
tifiable. Kant  is  not  guilty  of  the  faults  for  which  he 
is  arraigned  by  Mr.  Spencer. 


It  is,  however,  fair  to  state  that  these  misunder- 
standings appear  excusable  if  the  difficulties  are  borne 
in  mind  with  which  the  English  student  of  Kant  is 
confronted.  First,  Kant  cannot  be  understood  without 
taking  into  consideration  the  historical  development 
of  his  philosophy,  and,  secondly,  most  translations  of 
the  fundamental  terms,  he  employs,  are  so  misleading 
that  errors  can  scarcely  be  avoided. 

Kant's  philosophy  is  by  no  means  a  perfected  sys- 
tem ;  it  rather  represents  (as  perhaps  necessarily  all 
philosophies  do)  the  development  of  a  thinker's  mind. 
The  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason  "  especially  shows  traces 
of  the  state  of  Kant's  mind  at  different  periods,  and 
thus  it  is  that  we  discover  passages  which  closely 
considered  will  be  found  to  be  contradictory.  When 
reading  this  remarkable  work  we  feel  like  travelers 
walking  over  the  petrified  relics  of  a  powerful  eruption. 
There  are  strata  of  ideas  of  the  oldest  formation  close 
to  the  thoughts  of  a  recent  date.  There  are  also  ves- 
tiges of  intermediate  phases.  Here  they  stand  in  the 
petrification  of  printed  words,  peacefully  side  by  side, 


KANT  ON  EVOLUTION.  33 

as  memorials  of  a  great  revolution  in  the  development 
of  human  thought.  It  is  this  state  of  things  which 
more  than  anything  else  makes  of  Kant's  writings  such 
difficult  reading.  At  the  same  time  it  is  obvious  that 
we  cannot  simply  take  the  results  of  Kant's  philosophy  ; 
we  must  follow  him  in  the  paths  by  which  he  arrived 
at  any  given  proposition. 

There  is  no  philosopher  that  has  been  worse  mis- 
interpreted than  Kant ;  and  the  English  interpreters  of 
Kant  have  succeeded  in  mutilating  his  best  thoughts  so 
that  this  hero  of  progress  appears  as  a  stronghold  of 
antiquated  views.  Mistranslations  or  misconceptions 
of  his  terms  are  to  a  great  extent  the  cause  of  this 
singular  fate.  As  an  instance  we  mention  the  errors 
that  attach  to  Kant's  term  Anschauung.  Anschauung 
is  the  present  object  of  our  senses  ;  it  is  the  impression 
a  man  has  from  looking  at  a  thing  and  might  have 
been  translated  by  "perception"  or  perhaps  "sen- 
sation." It  is  usually  translated  by  "intuition."  The 
Anschauung  of  objects  comprises  the  data  of  knowl- 
edge, and  they  are  previous  to  our  reflection  upon 
them.  An  intuition  in  the  sense  of  the  English  In- 
tuitionalists  is  defined  as  "  a  presentation  which  can 
be  given  previously  to  all  thought,"  yet  this  presenta- 
tion is  supposed  to  be  a  kind  of  revelation,  a  knowledge 
that  comes  to  us  without  our  contemplation,  a  cogni- 
tion the  character  of  which  is  immediate  as  well  as 
mysterious  ;  in  short  something  that  is  supernatural. 

How  different  is  Kant's  philosophy,  for  instance,  if 
his  position  with  reference  to  time  and  space  is  mis- 
taken !  "Time  and  Space  are  our  Anschauung,''  Kant 
says.  But  his  English  translators  declare:  "Kant 
maintained  that  space  and  time  are  intuitions."  What 
a  difference  it  makes  if  intuition   is  interpreted  in  the 


34  KANT  ON  EVOLUTION. 

sense  applied  to  it  by  the  English  Intuitionalist  School 

instead  of  its  being  taken  in  the  original  meaning  of 

the  word  Anschatiiing. 

* 
*  * 

Any  one  who  knows  Kant  through  Mr.  Spencer's 
representations  only,  must  look  upon  him  as  having 
the  most  perverse  mind  that  could  possibly  exist ;  and 
yet  it  is  Kant  from  whom  Spencer  has  indirectly  de- 
rived the  most  characteristic  feature  of  his  philosophy. 
What  is  Mr.  Spencer's  agnosticism  but  a  popularisa- 
tion of  Kant's  view  that  things  in  themselves  are  un- 
knowable ? 

We  conclude  from  the  animosity  which  Mr.  Spen- 
cer shows  toward  Kant  that  he  does  not  know  how 
much  in  this  respect  he  agrees  with  Kant,  how  much 
he  has  unconsciously  imbibed  from  the  Zeitgeist  which 
in  part  was  formed  under  the  influence  of  this  huge 
error  of  the-  great  philosopher. 

I  feel  confident  that  any  clear  thinker  who  studies 
Kant  and  arrives  along  with  him  at  the  "thing  in 
itself"  will  soon  free  himself  from  this  error  of  Kan- 
tian thought.  Kant  himself  suggests  to  us  the  method 
by  which  we  are  to  find  the  way  out  of  agnosticism. 
As  a  proof  I  quote  the  views  of  two  independent  think- 
ers ;  both  influenced  by  Kant's  criticism  but  neither  a 
blind  follower.      Professor  Mach  says  : 

"  I  have  always  felt  it  as  a  special  good  fortune,  that  early  in 
my  life,  at  about  the  age  of  fifteen,  I  happened  to  find  in  the  li- 
brary of  my  father  Kant's  '  Prolegomena  to  Any  Future  Metaphysic' 
The  book  made  at  that  time  a  powerful,  ineffaceable  impression 
upon  me  that  I  never  afterwards  experienced  to  the  same  degree 
in  any  of  my  philosophical  reading.  Some  two  or  three  years 
later  I  suddenly  discovered  the  superfluous  role  that  '  the  thing  in 
itself  plays."     The  Monist,  Vol.  I,  No.  i,  pp.  65  and  66. 


KANT  ON  EVOLUTION.  35 

And  Schiller  guided  by  similar  considerations  says 
in  one  of  his  Xenions  : 

"  Since  Metaphysics,  of  late,  without  heirs  to  her  fathers  was  gathered  : 
Under  the  hammer  are  now  '  things  in  themselves  '  to  be  sold." 

The  latest  attack  of  Mr.  Spencer  upon  Kantism  is 
in  the  article  "Our  Space-Consciousness,"  in  Mind, 
written  in  reply  to  Professor  Watson.  Mr.  Spencer 
there  repeats  his  misconception  of  Kantism,  so  that  I 
feel  urged  to  utter  a  few  words  of  protest  against  his 
gross  misrepresentation  of  Kant's  views.  I  shall  con- 
fine myself  mainly  to  quotations  from  Kant's  works — 
and  the  passages  quoted  will  speak  for  themselves. 
Should  there  indeed  be  any  disciples  of  Kant  who  are,  as 
Mr.  Spencer  says,  "  profoundly  averse  to  that  evolu- 
tionary view  which  contemplates  mind  as  having  had 
a  genesis  conforming  to  laws  like  those  conformed  to 
by  the  genesis  of  the  body,"  these  quotations  will  suf- 
fice to  prove  that  they  have  misconstrued  the  views 
of  their  master.  Philosophers  hostile  to  the  theory  of 
evolution  had  better  select  another  patron  for  their 
ideas.  Kant  is  too  radical  a  mind  to  protect  those  men 
who  in  the  domains  of  thought  give  the  signal- for  retreat. 

Mr.  Spencer  adopted  the  evolution  theory  as  it  was 
presented  by  Von  Baer,  who  explains  "  Entwickciung'^ 
as  a  progress  from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heteroge- 
neous. 

Baer's  "Developmental  History  of  Animals"  was 
published  in  1828.  Mr.  Spencer  adopted  the  theory  in 
1854.  But  the  history  of  the  theory  of  evolution  is 
older  than  Von  Baer's  book.  Professor  Baer  concludes 
his  work  with  a  few  corollaries  among  which  near  the 
end  we  find  the  following  passage  : 

"If  we  survey  the  contents  of  the  whole  Scholia,  there  follows 
from  them  a  general  result.  We  found  that  the  effect  of  genera- 
tion continues  to  advance  from  a  part  to  a  whole  [Schol.  2.]  ;  tha/ 


30  KANT  ON  EVOLUTION. 

in  development,  self-dependence  increases  in  correspondence  with 
its  environment  [Schol  2.],  as  well  as  the  determinateness  of  its 
structure  [Schol.  1.]  ;  that  in  the  internal  development  special 
parts  shape  themselves  forth  from  the  more  general,  and  their  dif- 
ferentiation increases  [Schol.  3.]  ;  that  the  individual,  as  the  pos- 
sessor of  a  fixed  organic  form,  changes  by  degrees  from  more  gen- 
eral forms  into  more  special  [Schol.  5.]. 

"  The  general  result  of  our  inquiry  and  consideration  can  now 
well  be  declared  as  follows  : 

"That  the  developmental  history  of  the  individual  is  the  , 

history  of  increasing  individuality  in  every  relation  ;  that  is, 

Individualisation. 

"This  general  conclusion  is,  indeed,  so  plain,  that  it  needs  no 
proof  from  observation,  but  seems  evident  a  priori.  But  we  be- 
lieve that  this  evidentness  is  merely  the  stamp  of  truth,  and  there- 
fore is  its  guarantee.  Had  the  history  of  development  from  the 
outset  been  perceived  as  just  expressed,  it  could  and  should  have 
been  inferred,  that  the  individual  of  a  determinate  animal  type 
attains  to  this  by  changing  from  a  general  into  a  special  form. 
''But  experience  teaches  everywhere,  that  deductions  are  always  1 
safer  if  their  results  are  discovered  beforehand  hy  observation.; 
Mankind  would  have  obtained  a  still  greater  intellectual  possession 
than  it  really  has,  had  this  been  otherwise. 

"But  if  this  general  conclusion  has  truth  and  contents,  it  is 
one  fundamental  idea  which  runs  through  all  forms  and  degrees  of 
animal  development,  and  governs  every  single  relation.  It  is  the 
same  idea  that  collected  in  space  the  distributed  particles  into 
spheres  and  united  them  in  solar  systems ;  which  caused  the  dis- 
integrated dust  on  the  surface  of  our  metallic  planet  to  grow  up 
into  living  forms ;  but  this  idea  is  nothing  else  than  life  itself,  and 
the  words  and  syllables  in  which  it  expresses  itself,  are  the  different 
forms  of  life." 

These  corollaries  were  not  inserted  by  Baer  be- 
cause he  intended  to  proclaim  a  new  truth,  but  simply 
to  excite  a  popular  interest  in  a  strictly  scientific  work, 
in  order  to  extend  the  circle  of  its  readers.  Baer  says 
in  the  preface  : 

"So  much  about  the  first  part.  In  order  to  procure  for  the 
work  readers  and  buyers,  I  have  added  a  second  part  in  which  I 


KANT  ON  EVOLUTION.  37 

make  some  general  remarks  under  the  title  of  Scholia  and  Corol- 
laries. They  are  intended  to  be  sketches  of  the  confession  of  my 
scientific  faith  concerning  the  development  of  animals,  as  it  was 
formed  from  the  observation  of  the  chick  and  by  other  inquiries.', 

The  Encyclopccdia  Britatuiica  says  of  Baer,  "he 
prepared  the  way  for  Mr.  Spencer's  generalisation  of  the 
law  of  organic  evolution  as  the  law  of  all  evolution.* 

Baer  declares  that  individualisation  is  "the  one 
fundamental  idea  that  goes  through  all  the  forms  of 
cosmic  and  animal  development."  The  generality  of 
the  law  of  evolution  is  clearer  in  the  language  em- 
ployed by  Baer,  in  the  full  context  of  the  Scholia  than 
appears  from  the  short  statement  of  the  Encyclopiedia 
Britannica.  Nevertheless,  it  is  clear  enough  in  the 
quoted  passage  that  Baer  made  a  statement  of  univer- 
sal application.  How  can  such  a  universal  statement 
be  made  more  general? 

Some  zealous  Spencerians  claim  that  Mr.  Spencer 
is  the  discoverer  of  the  theory  of  evolution,  but  their 
pretension  is  only  an  evidence  of  grossest  ignorance. 
Mr.  Spencer  had  sOme  second-hand  information  of  Von 
Baer's  Entwickelungsgeschichte  and  his  adoption  of 
Von  Baer's  view,  that  development  is  a  progress  from 
the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous,  (which  is 
only  partly  true, )f  cannot  be  called  a  discovery.  The 
history  of  the  discovery  of  the  theory  of  evolution  be- 
gins about  a  century  before  Mr.  Spencer  appropriated 
the  idea  and  announced  himself  as  its  champion. 

•The  whole  passage  reads:  "  In  his  Ent7vickflungsscsckichte  der  Thitre, 
p.  264,  he  distinctly  tells  us  that  the  law  of  growing  individuality  is  the  '  fun- 
damental thought  which  goes  through  all  forms  and  degrees  of  animal  devel- 
opment and  all  single  relations.  It  is  the  same  thought  which  collected  in 
the  cosmic  space  solar  systems;  the  same  which  caused  the  weather-heaien 
dust  on  the  surface  of  our  metallic  planet  to  spring  forth  living  beings."  Von 
Baer  thus  prepared  the  way  for  Mr.  Spencer's  generalisation  of  the  law  of 
organic  evolution  as  the  law  of  all  evolution."  (Enc.  Brit.,  Vol.  VIII.,  p.  763.) 

tCf.  "  The  Test  of  Progress  "  in  Homiliis  of  Science,  pp.  36-42. 


38  KANT  ON  EVOLUTION. 

In  Kant's  time  the  interest  in  the  theory  of  evolu- 
tion v^as  confined  to  a  few  minds.  It  is  well  known 
that  Goethe  was  one  of  its  most  enthusiastic  support- 
ers.* In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  there 
were  three  views  proposed  to  explain  the  origin  and  the 
development  of  organised  beings  :  (i)  Occasionalism, 
(2)  the  theory  of  Evolution,  and  (3)  the  theory  of  Epi- 
genesis.  OccasionaHsm  maintained  that  God  created 
on  each  new  occasion  a  new  animal.  The  word  evo- 
lution was  used  in  a  different  sense  from  that  in  which 
it  is  now  understood  :  evolutionism,  as  maintained  by 
Bonnet,  Haller,  and  others,  was  the  view  that  the 
sperma  contained  a  very  small  specimen  of  the  animal 
that  was  to  grow  from  it.  The  hen's  egg  was  sup- 
posed to  contain  an  excessively  minute  but  complete 
chicken.  The  theory  of  epigenesis,  however,  pro- 
pounded in  1759  by  Caspar  Friedrich  Wolff  in  his 
"Theoria  Generationis,"  explained  development  by 
additional  growth,  and  it  is  this  theory  of  epigenesis 
which  later  on,  after  the  total  defeat  of  the  old  evolu- 
tionism, was  called  (but  improperly)  the  evolution 
theory.  The  word  ' '  evolution  "  has  thus  again  admitted 
the  erroneous  idea  of  an  unfolding. 

In  Kant's  time  the  battle  between  the  occasionalists, 
the  evolutionists,  and  the  adherents  of  the  epigenesis 
theory  was  hot  indeed  ;  and  Kant  unquestionably  gave 
preference  to  the  epigenesis  theory.  The  most  im- 
portant passage  on  the  subject  appears  in  his  "Cri- 
tique of  Judgment."     It  is  as  follows  : 

"  If  now  the  teleological  principle  of  the  generation  of  organ- 
ised beings  be  accepted,  as  it  would  be,  we  can  account  for  their  in- 
ternally adapted  form  either  by  Occasionalism  or  by  Prestabilism.\ 

*  See  Haeckel,  Goethe  on  Evolution,  No.  131  of  The  Open  Court. 
t  Preestabilismus,  that  is,  the  theory  that  the  phenomena  of  nature  are  the 
result  of  pre-established  law. 


KANT  ON   EVOLUTION.  39 

According  to  the  first,  the  supreme  world-cause  would,  in  agree- 
ment with  its  idea,  on  the  occasion  of  every  coition  directly  give  the 
proper  organic  form  to  the  material  thereby  blended  ;  according  to 
the  second,  it  would  have  implanted  into  the  original  products  of 
its  designing  wisdom  merely  the  power  by  means  of  which  an  or- 
ganic being  produces  its  like  and  the  species  itself  is  constantly 
maintained  and  likewise  the  death  of  individuals  is  continually  re- 
placed by  their  own  nature,  which  is  operating  at  the  same  time 
for  their  destruction. 

"If  we  assume  occasionalism  for  the  production  of  organised 
beings,  nature  is  thereby  wholly  discarded,  and  with  it  the  use  of 
reasoning  in  determining  the  possibility  of  such  kinds  of  products ; 
therefore,  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  this  system  is  accepted  by  any 
one  who  has  had  to  do  with  philosophy." 

"As  to  Preslabilism,  it  can  proceed  in  a  two-fold  manner, 
namely,  it  considers  every  organic  being  produced  by  its  like,  either 
as  the  eJtict  or  as  i\\e  product  of  the  first.  The  system  which  con- 
siders generated  beings  as  mere  ediicls  is  called  that  of  inJiviJiial 
preformation,  or  also  the  theory  of  evolution  ;  that  which  makes 
generated  beings //'(7rt'«f /J  is  named  the  system  of  epigcnesis.  The 
latter  can  also  be  called  a  system  of  generic  preformation,  because 
the  productive  power  of  those  generating  was  virtually  preformed 
to  agree  with  the  internal  adapted  arrangements  that  fell  to  the  lot 
of  their  race.  The  opposing  theory  to  this  view  should  be  named 
that  of  individual  preformation,  or  still  better,  the  theory  of  ei'olu- 
tion:' 

"  The  defenders  of  the  theory  of  evolution,  who  exempt  each 
individual  from  the  formative  power  of  nature,  in  order  to  derive 
the  same  directly  from  the  hand  of  the  Creator,  would  not  dare  to 
permit  this  to  happen  in  accordance  with  the  hypothesis  of  occa- 
sionalism, so  that  coition  would  be  a  mere  formality,  a  supreme 
national  world-cause  having  decided  to  form  every  particular  fcetus 
by  direct  interference,  and  to  resign  to  the  mother  only  its  develop- 
ment and  nourishment.  They  declared  themselves  in  favor  of  pre- 
formation, as  though  it  'were  not  the  same  to  make  the  required  forms 
arise  in  a  supernatural  manner  at  the  beginning  of  the  world,  as 
during  its  progress  ;  and  as  if  a  great  multitude  of  supernatural  ar- 
rangements would  not  rather  be  dispensed  with  through  occasional 
creation  which  were  necessary  in  order  that  the  embryo  formed  at 


40  KANT  ON  EVOLUTION. 

the  beginning  of  the  world  should,  throughout  the  long  period  up 
to  its  development,  not  suffer  from  the  destructive  forces  of  nature, 
but  endure  and  maintain  itself  intact ;  moreover,  an  immensely 
greater  number  of  such  preformed  beings  would  be  made  than  ever 
would  be  developed,  and  with  them  as  many  creations  be  thus  ren- 
dered unnecessary  and  purposeless.  They  still,  however,  resign  at 
least  something  to  nature,  in  order  not  to  fall  in  with  complete  hy- 
perphysics,  which  can  dispense  with  explanation  from  nature.  They 
still  held  fast  indeed,  to  their  hyperphysics  ;  even  finding  in  mon- 
sters (which  it  must  be  impossible  to  regard  as  designs  of  nature) 
cases  of  adaptation  which  call  for  admiration,  although  the  only 
purpose  of  that  adaptedness  might  be  to  make  an  anatomist  take 
offence  at  it  as  a  purposeless  adaptedness,  and  have  a  sense  of  mel- 
ancholy admiration.  Yet  they  could  not  well  fit  the  generation  of 
hybrids  into  the  system  of  preformation,  but  were  obliged  still  fur- 
ther to  endow  the  sperm  of  male  creatures  with  a  designedly  acting 
power,  whereas  they  had  otherwise  accorded  it  nothing  except  me- 
chanical force  to  serve  as  the  first  means  of  nourishment  of  the 
embryo  ;  yet  this  designedly  acting  force,  in  the  case  of  the  products 
of  generation  between  two  creatures  of  the  same  kind,  they  would 
grant  to  neither  of  them. 

"If  on  the  contrary  the  great  advantage  was  not  at  once  re- 
cognised which  the  theory  of  epigenesis  possessed  over  the  former 
in  view  of  the  experimental  foundation  on  which  the  proof  of  it 
rested  ;  yet  reason  would  be  especially  favorably  predisposed  from 
the  outset  for  this  mode  of  explanation,  inasmuch  as  it  regards  na- 
ture— with  reference  to  the  things  which  originally  can  be  conceived 
as  possible  only  in  accordance  with  the  theory  of  causality  and  de- 
sign, at  least  so  far  as  propagation  is  concerned — as  self-producing 
and  not  merely  as  developing,  and  thus  with  the  least  possible  em- 
ployment of  the  supernatural,  leaves  all  that  comes  afterwards, 
from  the  very  beginning  on,  to  nature  :  without  concerning  itself 
with  the  original  beginning,  with  regard  to  the  explanation  of 
which  physics  in  general  miscarries,  try  with  what  chain  of  causes 
it  may." 

Kant  recognises  neither  the  stability  of  species  nor, 
any  fixed  hmits  between  them.  And  this  one  maxim 
alone  suffices  to  prove  that  he  was  of  the  same  opinion 
as  the  great  biologist  who  wrote  the  "Origin  of  Spe- 
cies."    Kant  says  (Ed.  Hart.  III.  p.  444): 


KANT  ON  EVOLUTION.  4I 

"  Non  dalur  vacuum  formaruni^  that  is,  there  are  not  difiurent 
original  and  primitive  species,  which  were,  so  to  say,  isolated  and 
separated  by  an  empty  space  from  one  another,  but  all  the  mani- 
fold species  are  only  divisions  of  a  single,  chief,  and  general 
species ;  and  from  this  principle  results  again  this  immediate  in- 
ference :  datur  continuum  formarum,  that  is,  all  differences  of 
species  border  on  each  other,  and  allow  no  transition  to  one  an- 
other by  a  leap,  but  only  through  very  small  degrees  of  difference, 
by  which  we  can  arrive  at  one  from  another  ;  in  one  word,  there 
are  no  species  or  sub-species  which,  according  to  reason,  would  be 
next  each  other  in  affinity,  but  intermediate  species  are  always  pos- 
sible, whose  difference  from  the  first  and  second  is  less  than  their 
difference  from  one  another." 

In  Kant's  "Critique  of  Judgment"  (§.  80)  we  find 
the  following  passage  : 

"The  agreement  of  so  many  species  of  animals,  with  refer- 
ence to  a  definite,  common  scheme,  which  appears  not  only  to  be 
at  the  foundation  of  their  bony  structure,  but  also  of  the  arrange- 
ment of  their  other  parts,  in  which,  by  abridgment  of  one  and 
prolongation  of  another,  by  envelopment  of  this  and  unfolding  of 
that,  a  wonderful  simplicity  of  plan  has  been  able  to  produce  so 
great  a  diversity  of  species — this  agreement  casts  a  ray  of  hope, 
although  a  weak  one,  in  the  mind,  that  here,  indeed,  something 
might  be  accomplished  with  the  principle  of  the  mechanism  of  na- 
ture, without  which  in  general  there  can  be  no  physical  science. 

"This  analogy  of  forms,  so  far  as  they  appear,  notwithstand- 
ing all  their  diversity,  to  be  produced  after  the  model  of  a  common 
prototype,  strengthens  the  conjecture  of  a  real  relationship  be- ^ 
tween  the  same  by  generation  from  a  common  ancestral  source, , 
through  the  gradual  approach  of  one  animal  species  to  another,  j 
from  man,  in  whom  the  principle  of  design  appears  to  be  best! 
proved,  to  the  polyp,  from  this  to  the  moss  and  lichen,  and  finally 
to  the  lowest  stage  of  nature  perceptible  to  us,  to  crude  matter, 
from  which  and  its  forces,  according  to  mechanical  laws  (like  those 
which  work  in  the  production  of  crystals),  the  whole  technic  of  na- 


42  KANT  ON  EVOLUTION. 

ture  (which  is  so  incomprehensible  to  us  in  organised  beings  that 
we  imagine  another  principle  is  necessitated  for  their  explanation) 
appears  to  be  derived. 

"The  Archseologist  of  nature  is  now  free  to  make  that  great 
family  of  beings  (for  such  we  must  conceive  it,  if  the  uninterrupted 
relationship  is  to  have  a  foundation)  arise  out  of  the  extant  ves- 
tiges of  the  oldest  revolutions,  following  every  mechanism  known 
to  him  or  which  he  can  suppose." 

Kant  adds  in  a  footnote : 

"  An  hypothesis  of  such  a  kind  can  be  named  a  daring  venture 
of  reason,  and  there  may  be  few  of  the  most  sagacious  naturalists, 
through  whose  minds  it  has  not  sometimes  passed.  For  it  is  not 
absurd,  as  the  generatio  equivoca,  by  which  is  understood  the  pro- 
duction of  an  organised  being  through  the  mechanical  action  of 
crude  unorganised  matter.  But  it  would  still  be  g-etieratio  univoca 
in  the  common  understanding  of  the  word,  in  so  far  only  as  some- 
thing organic  was  produced  out  of  another  organic  body,  although 
specifically  distinguished  from  it ;  for  instance,  if  certain  aquatic 
animals  by  and  by  formed  into  amphibia,  and  from  these  after 
some  generations  into  land  animals.  A  friori  this  does  not  contra- 
dict the  judgment  of  pure  reason.  Only  experience  shows  no  ex- 
ample thereof ;  according  to  it,  rather,  all  generation  which  we 
know  is  generatio  homonyyna  (not  mere  -njiivoca  in  opposition  to 
production  out  of  unorganised  material),  that  is,  the  bringing  forth 
of  a  product  homogeneous  in  organisation,  with  the  generator :  and 
generatio  hetero7iyma,  so  far  as  our  actual  experience  of  nature 
goes  is  nowhere  met  with." 

The  treatise  "Presumable  Origin  of  Humanity," 
Kant  sums  up  in  the  following  sentence : 

"From  this  representation  of  the  earliest  human  history  it 
results  that  man's  departure  from  the  first  abode  of  his  kind  repre- 
sented in  his  judgment  as  Paradise,  was  no  other  than  the  transi- 
tion of  mere  animal  creatures  out  of  barbarism  into  man,  out  of 
the  leading-strings  of  instinct  into  the  guidance  of  reason,  in  a 
word,  out  of  the  guardianship  of  nature  into  the  state  of  freedom." 

In  his  work  "Upon  the  Different  Races  of  Man- 
kind," Kant  discusses  the  origin  of  the  species  of  man 
in  a  way  which  would  do  honor  to  a  follower  of  Dar« 


KANT  ON  EVOLUTION.  43 

win.  It  is  written  in  a  spirit  which  recognises  the 
difference  of  conditions  as  the  causes  that  produce 
different  species,  and  the  very  distinction  which  he 
makes  between  "natural  science"  as  purely  descrip- 
tive, and  "natural  history"  as  treating  "the  natural 
transformations  and  arising  therefrom  the  departures 
from  the  prototype,"*  is  the  best  evidence  that  Kant 
supported  the  principle  of  the  theory  of  evolution. 
Natural  history,  according  to  Kant's  definition,  is  an 
exposition  of  the  evolution  of  species,  and  he  rightly 
claims  that  in  his  time  it  was  "almost  entirely  lack- 
ing." A  beginning  was  made  by  himself  when  he 
wrote  his  General  History  and  Theory  of  the  Heavens. 
This  book  alone,  in  which  he  propounded  a  theory  of 
the  evolution  of  the  stellar  universe  "according  to 
mechanical  law,"  entitles  Kant  to  be  called  an  evolu- 
tionist.f 

Kant  claims  that  natural  history  (or,  as  we  should 
say  now,  the  doctrine  of  evolution)  "  would  probably 
trace  a  great  number  of  apparently  different  varieties 
back  to  a  species  of  one  and  the  same  kind." 

Kant  had  quite  a  definite  idea,  not  only  of  the 
evolution  of  man,  but  also  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 
He  says : 

*The  passage  is  quoted  in  full  on  page  g. 

t  Kant's  Altgemeine  Naturgcschichte  tind  Theorie  dcs  Himmcls  appeared 
anonymously  in  1755.  We  speak  of  the  Kant-Laplace  theory,  but,  says  John 
B.  Stallo  in  his  excellent  book,  Co7iccpts  of  Modern  Physics,  p.  280:  "The 
truth  is  that  the  nebular  hypothesis  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  now  generally 
held  is  due  to  Kant,  and  differs  in  several  essential  particulars  from  the 
hypothesis  of  Laplace."  Laplace  published  his  work.  Exposition  dtt  systime 
du  inonde  (styled  by  Arago  Mi'catiique  cHesiv)  in  i~g6,  and,  strange  to  say.  the 
French  astronomer  knew  nothing  of  the  propositions  of  his  anticipator.  La- 
place declares  that  "  the  atmosphere  of  the  sun  at  one  time  extended  beyond 
the  orbits  of  the  farthest  planets,  and  that  their  formation  is  due  to  a  gradua 
cooling  and  contracting  of  this  solar  system."  Laplace's  idea  is  fully  and 
almost  literally  contained  in  Kant's  work,  which  is  broader  and  status  the 
universal  law  of  world-formation. 


44  KANT  ON  EVOLUTION. 

"The  cry  which  a  child  scarcely  born  utters,  has  not  the  tone 
of  misery,  but  of  irritation,  and  violent  rage ;  not  the  result  of 
pain,  but  of  vexation  about  something  ;  probably  for  the  reason 
that  it  wishes  to  move  itself  and  feels  its  incapacity,  like  a  captive 
when  freedom  is  taken  from  him.  What  purpose  can  nature 
have  in  providing  that  a  child  shall  come  with  a  loud  cry  into  the 
i  world,  which  for  it  and  the  mother  is,  in  the  i-ude  natural  state, 
full  of  danger  ?  Since  a  wolf,  a  pig  even,  would  in  the  absence  of 
the  mother,  or  through  her  feebleness  owing  to  her  delivery,  be 
thus  attracted  to  devour  it.  But  no  animal  except  man  as  he  now 
is  announces  with  noise  its  new-born  existence  ;  which  in  the  wis- 
dom of  nature  appears  to  be  arranged  in  order  that  the  species  shall 
be  preserved.  We  must  also  assume  that  in  what  was  an  early 
epoch  of  nature  for  this  class  of  animals  (namely  in  the  period  of 
barbarism)  this  outcry  of  the  child  at  its  birth  di.d^net.exist ;  con- 
sequently only  later  on  a  second  epoch  appeared,  after  both  par- 
ents had  arrived  at  that  degree  of  civilisation  which  was  required 
for  home-life ;  yet  without  knowing  how  and  by  what  interweaving 
causes  nature  arranges  such  a  development.  This  remark  leads  us 
far  ;  for  example,  to  the  thought  whether  after  the  same  epoch, 
still  a  third  did  not  follow  accompanied  by  great  natural  revolu- 
tions, during  which  an  orang-outang  or  a  chimpanzee  perfected 
the  organs  which  serve  for  walking,  for  feeling  objects,  and  for 
speech,  and  thus  evolved  the  limb-structure  of  man  ;  in  which  ani- 
mals was  contained  an  organ  for  the  exercise  of  the  function  of 
reason,  which  by  social  cultivation  was  gradually  perfected  and 
developed. " 

Kant's  view  concerning  the  origin  of  the  biped  man 
from  quadruped  animal  ancestors  is  most  unequivo- 
cally stated. 

In  a  review  of  Dr.  Moscati's  Lecture  upon  the  dif- 
ference of  structure  in  animals  and  in  men,  Kant  says  : 

' '  Dr.  Moscati  proves  that  the  upright  walk  of  man  is  con- 
strained and  unnatural  ;  that  he  is  indeed  so  constructed  that  he  may 
be  able  to  maintain  and  move  in  this  position,  but  that,  although  by 
needful  and  constant  habit  he  formed  himself  thus,  inconvenience 
and  disease  arise  therefrom,  which  sufficiently  prove,  that  he  was 
misled  by  reason  and  imitation  to  deviate  from  the  first  animal  ar- 
rangement.    Man  is  not  constructed  internally  different  from  other 


KANT  ON  EVOLUTION. 


45 


animals  that  go  on  all  fours.  When  now  he  raises  himself  his  in- 
testines, particularly  the  embryo  of  pregnant  individuals,  come  into 
a  pendulous  situation  and  a  half  reversed  condition,  which,  if  it 
often  alternates  with  the  lying  position  or  that  on  all-fours,  cannot 
precisely  produce  specially  evil  consequences,  but,  by  constant 
continuance,  causes  deformities  and  numerous  diseases.  Thus,  for 
example,  the  heart,  because  it  is  compelled  to  hang  free,  elongates 
the  blood  vessels  to  which  it  is  attached,  assumes  an  oblique  posi- 
tion since  it  is  supported  by  the  diaphragm  and  slides  w^ith  its  end 
against  the  left  side — a  position  wherein  man,  especially  at  full 
growth,  differs  from  all  other  animals,  and  thereby  receives  an  in- 
evitable inclination  to  aneurism,  palpitation,  asthma,  chest-dropsy, 
etc.,  etc.  With  the  upright  position  of  man  the  mesentery,  pulled 
down  by  the  weight  of  the  intestines,  sinks  perpendicularly  there- 
under, is  elongated  and  weakened,  and  prepared  for  numerous  rup- 
tures. In  the  mesenteric  vein  which  has  no  valves,  the  blood  moves 
slowly  and  with  greater  difficulty  (it  having  to  ascend  against  the 
course  of  gravity)  than  would  happen  with  the  horizontal  position 
of  the  trunk.  ..." 

"We  could  add  considerably  to  the  reasons  just  adduced  to 
show  that  our  animainature  is  really  q^uadrupedaj,.  Among  all  four- 
footed  animals  there  is  not  a  single  one  that  could  not  swim  if  it 
accidentally  fell  into  the  water.  Man  alone  drowns,  except  in 
cases  where  he  has  learned  to  swim.  The  reason  is  because  he 
has  laid  aside  the  habit  of  going  on  all-fours  ;  for  it  is  by  this  mo- 
tion that  he  would  keep  himself  up  in  the  water  without  the  exer- 
cise of  any  art,  and  by  which  all  four-footed  creatures,  who  other- 
wise shun  the  water,  swim.  ..." 

"  It  will  be  seen,  accordingly,  that  the  first  care  of  nature  was 
that  man  should  be  preserved  as  animal  for  Iiimsclf  tin  J  his  s/>c\ic's, 
and  for  that  end  the  position  best  adapted  to  his  internal  struc- 
ture, to  the  lay  of  the  foetus,  and  to  his  preservation  in  danger, 
was  the  quadrupedal  position  ;  we  see,  moreover,  that  a  germ  of 
reason  is  placed  in  him,  whereby,  after  the  development  of  the 
same,  he  is  destined  for  social  intercourse,  and  by  the  aid  of  which 
he  assumes  the  position  which  is  in  every  case  the  most  fitted  for 
this,  namely,  the  bipedal  position, — thus  gaining  upon  the  one 
hand  infinite  advantages  over  animals,  but  also  being  obliged  to 
put  up  with  many  inconveniences  that  result  from  his  holding  his 
head  so  proudly  above  his  old  companions." 


45  KANT  ON  EVOLUTION. 

In  the  double-leaded  quotation  on  pages  43  and  44 
Kant  speaks  about  the  explanation  of  organised  life 
from  man  down  to  the  polyp  "according  to  mechan- 
ical laws  like  those  which  work  in  the  production  of 
crystals,"  and  he  adds,  in  organised  beings  the  whole 
technic  of  nature  is  so  incomprehensible  to  us  "that 
we  imagine  another  principle  is  necessitated  for  their 
\  explanation." 

This  "other  principle"  would  be  the  principle  of 
design,  or  the  teleological  explanation  of  phenomena. 
In  his  old  age  Kant  inclined  more  to  teleology  than 
in  his  younger  years,  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that 
Professor  Ernst  Haeckel  accuses  Kant  of  inconsist- 
ency. 

After  having  pointed  out  that  "Kant  is  one  of  the 
few  philosophers  that  combine  a  well-founded  knowl- 
edge of  the  natural  sciences  with  extraordinary  preci- 
cision  and  depth  of  speculation"  and  further  that  "he 
was  the  first  who  taught  'the  principle  of  the  struggle 
for  existence' and  'the  theory  of  selection.' "  Haeckel 
says  in  his  "Natiirliche  Schopfungsgeschichte,"  8th 
edition,  p.  91  : 

"Wir  wiirden  daher  unbedingt  in  der  Geschichte  der  Ent- 
wickelungslehre  unserem  gewaltigen  Konigsberger  Philosophen  den 
ersten  Platz  einraumen  miissen,  wenn  nicht  leider  diese  bewun- 
dernswiirdigen  monistischen  Ideen  des  jungen  Kant  spater  durch 
den  iiberwaltigenden  Einfluss  der  dualistisch  christlichen  Welt- 
anschauung ganz  zuriickgedrangt  worden  waren." 

This  "influence  of  the  dualistic  Christian  world- 
conception"  is  according  to  Haeckel,  Kant's  recogni- 
tion of  a  teleological  causation  in  the  realm  of  organ- 
ised life.     Haeckel  says  in  the  same  place : 

"Er  behauptet,  dass  sich  im  Gebiete  der  anorganischen  Natur 
unbedingt  sammtliche  Erscheinungen  aus  mechanischen  Ursachen, 


KANT  ON  EVOLUTION.  47 

aus  bewegenden  Kraf ten  derMaterie  selbst,  erklaren  lassen,  im  Ge- 
biete  der  anorganischen  Nutur  dagegen  nicht." 

Haeckel  does  not  stand  alone  in  denouncing  the  old 
Kant.  Schopenhauer  distinguishes  between  the  au- 
thor of  the  first  and  the  author  of  the  second  edition 
of  the  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  regarding  the  former 
only  as  the  real  Kant.  These  accusations  are  not  with- 
out foundation,  but  we  believe  with  Max  Miiller  that 
they  have  been  unduly  exaggerated. 

As  to  teleology  for  which  Kant's  preference  appears 
to  be  more  strongly  marked  in  his  later  than  in  his 
younger  years  we  should  say  that  it  is  a  problem  that 
should,  in  an  historical  investigation,  as  to  whether  or 
not  Kant  was  a  consistent  evolutionist,  be  treated  inde- 
pendently. No  one  can  deny  that  there  is  an  adaptation 
to  ends  in  the  domain  of  organised  life.  It  is  not  so 
much  required  to  deny  teleology  in  the  domain  of  or- 
ganised nature  as  to  purify  and  critically  sift  our  views 
of  teleology.  There  is  a  kind  of  teleology  which  does 
not  stand  in  contradiction  to  the  causation  of  efficient/' 
causes  so  called. 

Mr.  Spencer's  denunciations  of   Kant  would   have 
some  foundation,  if  he  had  reference  to  the  old  Kant 
alone.    But  everyone  who  censures  Kant  for  the  errors 
of  his  later  period  is  bound  to  qualify  his  statement,    \ 
and  indeed  whenever  such  strictures  of  Kantism  ap-  / 
pear  I  find  them  expressly  stated  as  having  reference  [ 
to  "J:he  old  Kant."  I 

That  Kant  who  is  a  living  power  even  to-day  is  the 
young  Kant,  it  is  the  author  of  the  first  edition  of  the 
"Critique  of  Pure  Reason."  He  is  generally  called 
"the  young  Kant,"  although  he  was  not  young  ;  he 
was,  as  we  say,  in  his  best  years.  The  old  Kant  who 
proclaimed  that  he  "must  abolish  knowledge  in  order 


48  KANT  ON  EVOLUTION. 

'to  make  room  for  faith"  is  a  dead  weight  in  our  col- 
leges and  universities.  The  young  Kant  is  positive,  the 
I  old  Kant  is  agnostic.  The  young  Kant  was  an  inves- 
'  tigator  and  naturalist  of  the  first  degree  ;  he  gave  an  im- 
petus to  investigation  that  it  had  never  before  received 
from  philosophy.  The  old  Kant,  I  should  not  exactly 
say  reverted  but  certainly,  neglected  the  principles  of 
his  younger  years  and  thus  became  the  leader  of  a  re- 
actionary movement  from  which  sprang  two  offshoots 
very  unlike  each  other  but  children  of  the  same  father  ; 
the  Oxford  transcendentalism  as  represented  by  Green 
and  the  English  agnosticism  as  represented  by  Mr. 
Spencer. 

It  is  strange  that  Mr.  Spencer  has  so  little  knowl- 
edge concerning  the  evolution  of  the  views  he  holds. 
If  he  were  more  familiar  with  the  history  of  the  idea 
"that  the  world-problem  is  insolvable,  he  would  show 
more  reverence  toward  the  old  Kant  and  his  mystical 
inclinations  ;  for  Kant,  whatever  Mr.  Spencer  may  say 
against  it,  is  the  father  of  modern  agnosticism.*] 

* 

The  history  of  Mr.  Spencer's  philosophical  devel- 
opment shows  that  the  first  idea  which  took  posses- 
sion of  his  mind  and  formed  the  centre  of  crystalisa- 
tion  for  all  his  later  views  was  M.  Condorcet's  optim- 
ism. Condorcet  believed  in  progress  ;  he  was  con- 
vinced that  in  spite  of  all  the  tribulations  and  anxie- 

Y  *  In  this  connection  we  call  attention  to  a  book,  Kant  und  Darwin,  ein. 

Bcitrag  zur  Geschichte  der  Entwickelungslehre,  Jena,  1875,  by  Fritz  Schultze, 
formerly  Privat  decent  in  Jena,  now  Professor  of  philosophy  at  the  Polytechnic 

j  Institute  in  Dresden.  This  little  book  is  a  collection  of  the  most  important 
passages  of  Kant's  views  concerning  evolution,  the  struggle  for  existence,  and 
the  theory  of  selection,  and  it  is  astonishing  to  find  how  much  Kant  had  to 
say  on  the  subject  and  how  strongly  he  agrees  with  and  anticipates  Darwin. 
If  Kant  had  not  lived  before  Darwin  one  might  be  tempted  to  conclude  that 
,     be  was  familiar  with  his  Origin  0/  Species  and  The  Descent  of  Man. 


k 


KANT  ON  EVOLUTION.  49 

ties  of  the  present,  man  would  at  last  arrive  at  a  state 
of  perfection.  He  saw  a  millennium  in  his  prophetic 
mind,  which  alas  ! — if  the  law  of  evolution  be  true — 
can  never  be  realised.  Condorcet  died  a  martyr  to  his 
ideals.  He  poisoned  himself  in  1799  to  escape  death 
by  the  Guillotine. 

The  influence  of  Condorcet's  work  Esqiiisse  d'tin 
tableau  historique  des  progrcs  de  r  esprit  huviain  is  trace- 
able not  only  in  Mr.  Spencer's  first  book,  "Social 
Statics,"  published  in  1850,  but  in  all  his  later  writ- 
ings. How  can  a  true  evolutionist  believe  in  the 
Utopia  of  a  state  of  perfect  adaptation?  Does  not 
each  progress  demand  new  adaptations?  Take  as  an 
instance  the  change  from  walking  on  four  feet  to  an 
upright  gait.  Did  not  this  progress  itself  involve  man 
in  new  difficulties,  to  which  he  had  to  adapt  himself  ? 
Let  a  labor-saving  machine  be  invented,  how  many 
laborers  lose  their  work  and  how  many  others  are  in 
demand  !  The  transition  from  one  state  to  the  other  is 
not  easy,  and  as  soon  as  it  is  perfected  new  wants  have 
arisen  which  inexorably  drive  humanity  onward  on 
the  infinite  path  of  progress  which  can  never  be  lim- 
ited by  any  state  of  perfection.  There  is  a  constant 
readjustment  necessary,  and  if  we  really  could  reach  a 
state  of  perfect  adaptation  human  life  would  drop  into 
the  unconsciousness  of  mere  reflex  motions. 

Any  one  who  understands  the  principle  of  evolu- 
lution   and  its  universal  applicability,   will  recognise 
that   there   can  be  no  standstill  in  the  world,  no  state 
of  perfect  adaptation.      Our  solar  system  has  evolved,'  / 
as   Kant   explained   in  his  "General  Cosmogony  and'  % 
Theory  of  the  Heavens,"  out  of  a  nebula,  and  is  going' 
to  dissolve   again  into  a  nebular  state.      So  our  social 
development  consists  in  a  constant  realisation  of  ideals. 


50  KANT  ON  EVOLUTION. 

We  may  think  that  if  we  but  attain  our  next  and  dear- 
est ideal,  humanity  will  be  satisfied  forever.  But  as 
soon  as  we  have  realised  that  ideal,  we  quickly  get  ac- 
customed to  its  benefits.  It  becomes  a  matter  of 
course  and  another  ideal  higher  still  than  that  just 
realised  appears  before  our  mental  gaze. 

Herder,  in  his  "Ideas  for  a  Philosophy  of  the  His- 
tory of  Mankind,"  not  unlike  Mr.  Spencer,  was  also 
under  the  spell  of  the  Utopian  ideal,  that  humanity 
will  reach  at  last  a  state  of  perfect  happiness.  Kant, 
in  his  review  of  Herder's  book,  discusses  the  relativity 
of  happiness  and  its  insufficiency  as  a  final  aim  of  life. 
He  says : 

"First  of  all  the  happiness  of  an  animal,  then  that  of  a  child 
and  of  a  youth,  and  lastly  that  of  man  !  In  all  epochs  of  human 
history,  as  well  as  among  all  classes  and  conditions  of  the  same 
epoch,  that  happiness  has  obtained  which  was  in  exact  conformity 
with  the  individual's  ideas  and  the  degree  of  his  habituation  to 
the  conditions  amid  which  he  was  born  and  raised.  Indeed,  it  is 
not  even  possible  to  form  a  comparison  of  the  degree  of  happiness 
nor  to  give  precedence  to  one  class  of  men  or  to  one  generation 
over  another.  ...  If  this  shadow-picture  of  happiness  ....  were 
the  actual  aim  of  Providence,  every  man  would  have  the  measure 
of  his  ov.n  happiness  within  him.  .  .  .  Does  the  author  (Herder) 
think  perhaps  that,  if  the  happy  inhabitants  of  Otaheiti  had  never 
been  visited  by  more  civilised  peoples  and  were  ordained  to  live 
in  peaceful  indolence  for  thousands  of  years  to  come — that  we 
could  give  a  satisfactory  answer  to  the  question  why  they  should 
exist  at  all,  and  whether  it  would  not  have  been  just  as  well  that 
this  island  should  be  occupied  by  happy  sheep  and  cattle  as  that 
it  should  be  inhabited  by  men  who  are  happy  only  through  pure 
enjoyment  ?  " 

"  It  involves  no  contradiction  to  say  that  no  individual  mem- 
ber of  all  the  offspring  of  the  human  race,  but  that  only  the  spe- 
cies, fully  attains  its  mission  (Bestimmung).  The  mathematician 
may  explain  the  matter  in  his  way.  The  philosopher  would  say  : 
the  mission  of  the  human  race  as  a  whole  is  unceasing  progress, 
and  the  perfection  (Vollendung)  of  this  mission  is  a  mere  idea  (al- 


KANT  ON  EVOLUTION.  5I 

though  in  every  aspect  a  very  useful  one)  of  the  aim  towards  which 
in  conformity  with  the  design  of  providence,  we  are  to  direct  our 
endeavors." 

It  is  indubitable  that  Kant's  views  of  evolution 
agree  better  with  the  present  state  of  scientific  inves- 
tigation than  does  Mr.  Spencer's  philosophy,  which 
has  never  been  freed  from  Condorcet's  ingenuous  op- 
timism. The  assumption  of  a  final  state  of  perfection 
by  absolute  adaptation  is  irreconcilable  with  the  idea 
of  unceasing  progress,  which  must  be  true  if  evolution 

is  a  universal  law  of  nature. 

* 

Soon  after  the  publication  of  this  article,  the  au- 
thor's proposition  that  Kant's  writings  are  difficult 
reading  (made  on  page  33,  line  4)  found  an  unexpected 
and  vigorous  opposition. 

Mr.  Charles  S.  Peirce  made  the  following  inciden- 
tal remark  in  a  letter  to  the  author  (Sept.  6,  i8go): 

"  I  have  heard  too  much  of  Kant's  being  hard  reading.  I  think 
he  is  one  of  the  easiest  of  philosophers ;  for  he  generally  knows 
what  he  wants  to  say,  which  is  more  than  half  the  battle,  and  he 
says  it  in  terms  which  are  very  clear.  Of  course,  it  is  quite  absurd 
to  try  to  read  Kant  without  preliminary  studies  of  Leibnitz  and 
English  philosophers,  as  well  as  of  the  terminology  of  which 
Kant's  is  a  modification  or  transmogrification.  But  there  is  a  way 
of  making  out  what  he  meant,  while  such  writers  as  Hume  and 
J.  S.  Mill,  the  more  you  study  them  the  more  they  puzzle  you." 

I  agree  with  Mr.  Peirce's  proposition,  though  I 
should  prefer  to  express  it  differently.  I  say  Kant  is 
hard  reading,  but  if  we  read  him  with  care  we  can 
easily  know  what  he  means.  Mr.  Spencer's  writings 
are  easy  reading,  but  considering  the  looseness  of  his 
thoughts  he  is  difficult  to  comprehend,  and  his  many 
contradictory  statements  are  hard  to  reconcile. 


MR.  SPENCER'S  AGNOSTICISM. 

MR.  Herbert  Spencer  as  a  philosopher  and  as  a 
thinker  is  a  power  in  our  age,  not  only  because 
he  understands  how  to  deal  with  deep  problems  so  as 
to  impress  his  conception  of  them  upon  the  reader, 
but  also  because  his  views  strongly  coincide  with  the 
Zeitgeist  of  the  present  generation.  I  am  fully  aware 
of  the  fact  that  in  some  most  vital  principles  the  phi- 
losophy which  I  uphold  is  in  perfect  sympathy  with 
the  spirit  of  Mr.  Spencer's  views,  but  at  the  same 
time  I  recognise  that  there  are  points  not  less  impor- 
tant in  which  there  is  no  agreement,  and  perhaps  the 
most  important  one  is  the  doctrine  of  agnosticism. 

Now  there  is  a  certain  truth  in  agnosticism,  which 
has  been  felt  and  recognised  at  all  times  and  may  be 
considered  as  a  truism.  It  is  this,  that  existence  ex- 
ists, and  we  do  not  know  whence  it  comes.  We  may 
imagine  that  existence  did  not  exist,  and  it  seems  that 
non-existence  ought  to  be  the  natural  and  aboriginal 
condition.  But  we  do  exist ;  we  are  here  and  are  a 
part  of  a  great  whole.  We  can  understand  how  we 
originated  from  prior  conditions,  and  can  trace  the 
forms  of  being  back  indefinitely,  but  we  are  utterly 
incapable  of  tracing  them  back  to  nothingness,  and 
all  attempts  at  deriving  existence  from  non-existence 
finally  end  in  lamentable  failures.  Thus  the  suspicion 
rises  that  the  question,  "Whence  does  existence 
come  ?  "  itself  may  be  illegitimate. 

Prof.  W.  K.  Clifford  in  his  lecture  on  "Theories 
of  Physical  Forces"  endeavors  to  explain  the  redun- 


MR.    SPENCERS  AGNOSTICISM.  53 

dancy  of  the  question  "Why?  "  in  science.  Science 
teaches  that  it  is  so  and  tliat  it  must  be  so.  Given 
one  moment  of  the  world-process,  and  we  can  calcu- 
late the  next  following  or  any  other  one  with  certainty: 
we  can  say  that  it  must  be  such  or  such  a  state  of 
things.  But  the  "Why?"  of  things,  Clifford  says, 
does  not  lie  in  the  range  of  science,  for  the  question 
has  no  sense. 

Clifford's  proposition  is  directed  against  metaphys- 
ical philosophers  to  whom  there  is  a  "Why?"  of  facts, 
that  is  to  say,  a  reason  for  the  world  at  large,  or  as  it 
is  sometimes  expressed,  "a  First  Cause."  Clifford's 
conception  of  the  "Why?"  and  the  "That,"  it  ap- 
pears to  us,  is  simply  a  denunciation  of  the  so  called 
great  world-enigma  as  a  sham  problem  which  has  no 
sense. 

Goethe  makes  a  similar  remark.     He  says : 

"Wie,  Wann,  und  Wo?— Die  Gotter  bleiben  stumm. 
Du  halte  dich  an's  Weil  und  frage  nicht  Warum." 

That  is  to  say,  why,  when,  and  where  existence 
originated,  are  questions  which  do  not  admit  of  any 
answer.  Trace  the  Because,  and  leave  the  Why 
alone. 

We  should  prefer  to  say,  the  tracing  of  the  "that" 
is  the  only  legitimate  conception  of  the  "why?" 

The  "that,"  however,  appears  as  a  triple  enigma, 
which  can  be  formulated  as  the  problem  of  creation, 
of  eternity,  and  infinity.  There  is  the  "that"  of  ac- 
tuality, the  "that"  of  its  extent,  and  the  "that"  of 
its  duration.* 

Experience  teaches  us  that  there  is  something  stir- 

*A  discussion  of  Eniil  Du  nois-Raymond's  "Seven  World-Riddles' 
would  here  lead  us  too  far.  That  he  selected  the  sacred  number  "seven" 
was  a  pure  self-mystification  and  shows  his  inclination  to  mysticism. 


54  MR.    SPENCER'S  AGNOSTICISM. 

ring  about.      It  is  as  Goethe  calls  it  in  the  words  of 
Mephistophelfs  : 

"\\':is  sich  dem  Nichis  entgegenstellt, 
Das  Etwas,  diese  plumpe  Welt." 

This  something  stirring  about  (reduced  to  general 
ideas)  is  substance  moving  in  space,  and  thus  the 
metaphysical  question  shows  three  aspects,  the  prob- 
lem of  substance,  the  problem  of  motion  (viz.,  of  cau- 
sation or  succession  of  events  in  time),  and  the  prob- 
lem of  space.  The  question  whence  they  come,  where 
and  when  they  originated,  receives  no  other  answer 
than  that  they  exist;  they  exist  now,  have  always  ex- 
isted, and  will  always  exist,  which  finds  expression  in 
three  negations,  three  nots:  substance  does  7iot  rise 
from  nothing,  time  has  not  either  a  beginning  or  an 
end,  space  is  ;/^^/ limited.  In  other  words  :  substance 
is  uncreate,  time  is  eternal,  space  is  infinite. 

Man's  reluctance  to  be  satisfied  with  the  fact  of 
the  "that,"  and  his  expectation  to  derive  facts  some- 
how from  nothingness,  finds  expression  in  three  un- 
warranted assumptions: 

1.  The  a'ssumption  of  creation,  based  on  the  argu- 
ment that  reality  took  its  rise  from  non-existence,  or 
else  being  uncreated  should  not  exist; 

2.  The  assumption  of  a  beginning  of  the  world- 
p»-ocess,  which  must  have  been  caused  by  some  exter- 
nal agent  or  else  could  not  have  started ;  and 

3.  The  assumption  of  the  limitations  of  space,  an 
idea  expressed  in  many  ancient  illustrations  of  the 
universe,  but  now  utterly  abandoned.  Space  is  sup- 
posed to  come  somewhere  to  an  end,  as  if  it  were  a 
big  box,  and  the  world  is  supposed  to  be  contained 
in  it. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  science  does  not  coun- 


MR.    SPENCER'S  AGNOSTICISM.  55 

tenance  these  assumptions.  If  the  "that"  of  exist- 
ence is  accepted  as  a  given  fact,  the  world-problems 
lose  their  metaphysical  significance,  for  the  stubborn- 
ness of  reality  is  as  little  mysterious  as  are  the  ideas 
of  infinity  and  eternality.* 

To  a  positivist  the  three  problems  are  disposed  of 
by  the  simple  recognition  of  the  "that."  Positivism 
starts  from  facts  as  the  data  of  cognition,  and  does 
not  deem  itself  responsible  to  explain  the  "why"  of 
the  "that,"  but  traces  the  "why"  in  the  "that."  When 
we  know  more  about  the  whole  of  the  stellar  universe 
we  may  be  able  to  say  more  about  its  limits  in  time 
and  space  and  perhaps  also  about  the  irritation  that 
caused  the  whirls  in  the  primordial  ether;  but  the 
basic  question,  why  existence  exists,  whence  the  ether 
comes,  would  remain  as  it  is  now.  The  existence  of 
existence  is  simply  the  brutal  self-assertion  of  facts — 
das  Eiwas,  diese  plumpe  Welt  ! 

Knowledge  means  a  representation  of  facts  in 
mental  symbols,  and  comprehension  means  a  unifica- 
tion or  harmonious  systematisation  of  these  symbols. 
At  any  rate,  we  have  to  start  with  facts.  As  soon, 
however,  as  we  attempt  to  start  with  nothing  and 
hope  by  some  sleight  of  hand  to  create  facts  or  to 
evolve  them  out  of  non-existence,  we  are  confronted 
with  an  insolvable  world-problem.  Yet  the  proposi- 
tion of  this  world-problem  can  bear  no  close  investi- 
gation. It  rests  upon  a  misstatement  of  the  case,  for 
the  very  demand  to  produce  positive  facts  out  of  noth- 
ing, is  itself  contradictory  and  is  as  absurd  as  the  idea 
of  a  First  or  Ultimate  Cause. 

•  The  idea  of  infinity  has  caused  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  but  the  infinite 
(if  understood  in  its  proper  sense,  which  is  that  of  mathematics)  is  actually  a 
much  simpler  conception  than  the  finite.  See  the  author's  Homilies  of  Science, 
pp.  108-111. 


56  MR.  spencer's  agnosticism. 

The  idea  of  a  first  cause  rests  upon  a  confusion  of 
'he  terms  "cause"  and  "raison  d'etre.'"  A  first  cause 
cannot  exist,  because  every  cause  is  the  effect  of  a 
former  cause,  but  we  may  conceive  of  an  ultimate 
raison  d'etre.  Every  raison  d'etre  of  a  natural  process 
is  formulated  in  a  natural  law,  and  all  these  natural 
laws,  if  they  were  all  known  and  investigated,  would 
form  one  great  system  of  laws  which  can  serve  as  a 
means  of  orientation  in  this  world.  The  most  general 
of  these  laws,  being  the  most  comprehensive  state- 
ment of  facts,  would  be  the  ultimate  raison  d'etre  or 
ground  of  the  world. 

The  idea  of  an  ultimate  ground  or  raison  d'etre  of 
the  world  is  legitimate,  but  the  idea  of  a  "First Cause '* 
is  spurious.  A  First  Cause  is  inscrutable,  indeed,  not 
because  it  is  so  profound  an  idea  that  "it  passes  all 
comprehension,"  but  simply  because  it  is  a  self-con- 
tradictory and  nonsensical  idea.* 

*         * 

A  philosophy  which  grants  that  the  world  exists 
and  builds  its  world-conception  out  of  the  facts  of  ex- 
perience, leaving  the  problem  how  existence  can  be 
derived  from  non-existence  to  metaphysicians  of  the 
old  school,  is  called  Positivism,  and  a  genuine  posi- 
tivism has  no  need  of  blocking  the  way  of  science 
with  the  bugbears  of  unknowables.  But  Mr.  Spencer 
makes  of  the  unknowable  the  cornerstone  of  his  phi- 
losophy and  is  not  satisfied  until  he  finds  every- 
thing incomprehensible,  mysterious,  and  inscrutable. 
Through  the  spectacles  of  his  philosophy  even  science 
herself  proves  ultimately  a  mere  systematisation  of 
nescience. 

*For  further  details  on  the  problem  of  causation  see  the  author's  i^««</a- 
mtntal  Problems,  pp.  79-91  ff.,  and  Primer  0/ Philosophy,  pp.  137  ff. 


MR.    SPENCER'S  AGNOSTICISM.  57 

And  how  does  Mr.  Spencer  succeed  in  proving  his 
case? 

Very  simply,  by  confounding  the  issues  and  then 
drawing  the  conclusion  that  the  thing  under  consider- 
ation is  inscrutable  and  the  problem  insolvable. 

Mr.  Spencer's  agnosticism  is  not  a  philosophical 
formulation  of  the  difficulty  which  presents  itself  in 
the  stubborn  actuality  of  facts  and  in  our  inability  to 
derive  existence  from  non-existence.  A  general  senti- 
ment of  this  difficulty  may  have  been  hidden  in  the 
subconscious  depths  of  his  soul  and  have  prompted 
him  to  embrace  and  glorify  agnosticism,  but  the 
agnosticism  which  he  actually  proposes,  genuine 
Spencerian  agnosticism,  consists  in  a  mystery-isation 
of  scientific  knowledge  itself,  brought  about  by  a  per- 
version of  scientific  methods  and  an  ill-concealed  lovt 
of  the  chiaroscuro  of  a  dilettantic  sciolism. 

In  his  First  Principles  Mr.  Spencer  proposes  un- 
tenable and  self-contradictory  conceptions  of  the 
terms  space,  time,  matter,  and  motion,  and  then  con- 
cludes that  they  pass  all  understanding.  Mr.  Spencer, 
however,  overlooks  that  all  our  conceptions  are  mere 
abstractions  describing  certain  qualities,  that  these 
terms  represent  these  qualities,  and  comprehension  is 
nothing  more  or  less  than  a  proper  and  systematic 
representation.  We  know  what  matter,  motion,  space 
and  time  are,  if  considered  as  abstractions,  although 
it  is  true  we  cannot  know  what  they  are  in  themselves. 
But  we  need  not  know  it,  for  space,  time,  matter,  and 
motion  do  not  exist  in  themselves;  they  are  not  things 
in  themselves  ;  they  are  simply  abstracts  representing 
certain  qualities  of  reality. 

Let  us  take  the  term  motion  as  an  example.  Mr. 
Spencer  says : 


58  MR.    spencer's  agnosticism. 

"  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  ship  which,  for  simplicity's  sake,  we 
will  suppose  to  be  anchored  at  the  equator  with  her  head  to  the 
West.  When  the  captain  walks  from  stem  to  stern,  in  what  direc- 
tion does  he  move?  East,  is  the  obvious  answer, — an  answer 
which  for  the  moment  may  pass  without  criticism.  But  now  the 
anchor  is  heaved,  and  the  vessel  sails  to  the  West  with  a  velocity 
equal  to  that  at  which  the  captain  walks.  In  what  direction  does 
he  now  move  when  he  goes  from  stem  to  stern  ?  You  cannot  say 
East,  for  the  vessel  is  carrying  him  as  fast  towards  the  West  as  he 
walks  to  the  East ;  and  you  cannot  say  West  for  the  converse  rea- 
son. In  respect  to  surrounding  space  he  is  stationary ;  though  to 
all  on  board  the  ship  he  seems  to  be  moving.  But  now  are  we 
quite  sure  of  this  conclusion? — Is  he  really  stationary?  When  we 
take  into  account  the  earth's  motion  round  its  axis,  we  find  that 
instead  of  being  stationary  he  is  travelling  at  the  rate  of  1000  miles 
per  hour  to  the  East ;  so  that  neither  the  perception  of  one  who 
looks  at  him,  nor  the  inference  of  one  who  allows  for  the  ship's 
motion,  is  anything  like  the  truth.  Nor  indeed,  on  further  con- 
sideration, shall  we  find  this  revised  conclusion  to  be  much  better. 
For  we  have  forgotten  to  allow  for  the  Earth's  motion  in  its  orbit. 
This  being  some  68,000  miles  per  hour,  it  follows  that,  assuming 
the  time  to  be  midday,  he  is  moving,  not  at  the  rate  of  1000  miles 
per  hour  to  the  East,  but  at  the  rate  of  67,000  miles  per  hour  to 
the  West.  Nay,  not  even  now  have  we  discovered  the  true  rate 
and  the  true  direction  of  his  movement.  With  the  Earth's  progress 
in  its  orbit,  we  have  to  join  that  of  the  whole  Solar  system  towards 
the  constellation  Hercules;  and  when  we  do  this,  we  perceive  that 
he  is  moving  neither  East  nor  West,  but  in  a  line  inclined  to  the 
plane  of  the  Ecliptic,  and  at  a  velocity  greater  or  less  (according 
to  the  time  of  the  year)  than  that  above  named.  To  which  let  us 
add,  that  were  the  dynamic  arrangements  of  our  sideral  system 
fully  known  to  us,  we  should  probably  discover  the  direction  and 
rate  of  his  actual  movement  to  differ  considerably  even  from  these. 
How  illusive  are  our  ideas  of  motion,  is  thus  made  sufficiently 
manifest.  That  which  seems  moving  proves  to  be  stationary;  that 
which  seems  stationary  proves  to  be  moving ;  while  that  which  we 
conclude  to  be  going  rapidly  in  one  direction,  turns  out  to  be  going 
much  more  rapidly  in  the  opposite  direction.  And  so  we  are  taught 
that  what  we  are  conscious  of  is  not  the  real  motion  of  any  object, 
either  in  its  rate  or  direction  ;  but  merely  its  motion  as  measured 


MR.  spencer's  agnosticism.  59 

from  an  assigned  position — either  the  position  we  ourselves  occupy 
or  some  other." 

Motion  is  a  change  of  place,  but  this  change  of 
place  is  not  something  absolute.  It  is  nothing  in  it- 
self. It  is  relative  and  can  be  determined  only  by  a 
point  of  reference.  If  we  omit  this  reference-point  in 
our  description  of  a  certain  motion  we  shall  find  our- 
selves unable  to  determine  either  its  velocity  or  its 
direction,  and  in  this  way  truly  "our  ideas  of  motion" 
are  "thus  made  illusive."  To  describe  a  relation  with- 
out considering  it  as  a  relation  is  nonsensical  and 
must  be  productive  of  confusion. 

Let  us  take  one  more  instance.  Mr.  Spencer  says 
that  "all  hypotheses  respecting  the  constitution  of 
matter  commit  us  to  inconceivable  conclusions  when 
logically  developed."  Now  it  is  a  trite  truism  that  we 
know  little  of  the  constitution  of  the  elements,  and 
there  are  innumerable  problems  of  physics  and  chem- 
istry unsolved  as  yet,  and  our  scientists  have  no  hope 
of  solving  all  these  problems  within  any  reasonable 
time.  If  this  were  Mr.  Spencer's  meaning,  we  should 
need  no  agnosticism  to  be  told  so,  for  the  world  has 
known  this  long  ago.  Yet  this  is  not  Mr.  Spencer's 
meaning.  He  declares  that  "matter  in  its  ultimate 
nature  is  as  absolutely  incomprehensible  as  Space  and 
Time."  And  the  efforts  which  he  makes  with  the  fore- 
determined  aim  that  they  should  fail  and  end  in  con- 
tradictions, are  upon  the  whole  attempts  to  think  of 
matter,  force,  motion,  space,  and  time,  not  as  ab- 
stracts, but  as  absolute  entitities,  as  things  in  them- 
selves. They  become  inconceivable,  not  by  being 
logically,  but  by  being  illogically  developed.  He  says 
for  instance  (p.  53) : 


6o  MR.  spencer's  agnosticism. 

"The  idea  of  resistance  cannot  be  separated  in  thought  from 
the  idea  of  an  extended  body  which  offers  resistance.  To  suppose 
that  central  forces  can  reside  in  points  not  infinitesimally  small 
but  occupying  no  space  whatever — points  having  position  only, 
with  nothing  to  mark  their  position — points  in  no  respect  distin- 
guishable from  the  surrounding  points  that  are  not  centres  of 
force  ; — to  suppose  this,  is  utterly  beyond  human  power." 

If  we  suppose  that  centres  of  force  exist  as  math- 
ematical points  separated  from  extended  bodies,  we 
forget  that  our  ideas  of  force  and  of  bodies  and  of  ex- 
tension are  mere  abstractions.  To  think  of  our  ab- 
stract ideas  as  if  they  were  things  in  themselves,  ab- 
solute existences,  will  always  and  necessarily  lead  us 
into  contradictions. 

Things  in  themselves  do  not  exist ;  they  are  ghosts. 
If  we  try  to  conceive  the  nature  of  ghosts,  we  shall 
naturally  turn  agnostics,  but  if  we  bear  in  mind  that 
our  ideas  have  been  abstracted  from  realit}',  that  they 
are  symbols  describing  certain  parts  or  features  of 
reality,  we  shall  soon  learn  to  understand  that  these 
ghosts  do  not  exist. 

It  would  lead  us  too  far  here  to  show  that  Mr. 
Spencer's  method  of  making  every  one  of  "the  ulti- 
mate scientific  ideas"  mysterious  is  throughout  the 
same.  He  tacitly  neglects  some  of  their  fundamental 
features  and  upon  the  whole  treats  them  as  if  they 
ought  to  be  things  in  themselves.  This  method  of 
dealing  with  the  problems  of  space,  time,  matter,  and 
motion  will  strongly  appeal  to  mystic  minds,  but  it 
will  not  further  our  insight.  The  aim  of  philosophy 
is  not  to  confound  our  concepts,  not  to  entangle  our 
minds  in  hopeless  confusion,  but  to  clarify  our  ideas 
and  render  them  precise  so  that  we  shall  know  what 
they  represent  and  how  to  employ  them. 


MR.    SPENCER'S  AGNOSTICISM.  6l 

Philosophy  ought  to  be  a  clarification  of  the  fun- 
damental conceptions  of  science  ;  it  ought  to  be  the 
science  of  science  and  come  to  the  assistance  of  all 
the  special  sciences  by  helping  them  to  become  con- 
scious of  the  methods  of  scientific  inquiry;  it  ought 
further  to  teach  the  specialist  to  see  the  interconnex- 
ion between  all  the  branches  of  knowledge  and  sys- 
tematise these  results  into  a  consistent  system ;  but 
agnosticism  acts  like  a  fog  superadding  to  the  things 
that  are  known  the  imaginary  quantity,  not  of  the  un- 
known or  not  yet  known,  but  of  the  unknowable.  And 
this  fog  is  impenetrable;  for  Mr.  Spencer  declares 
times  and  again  that  nothing  can  be  surer  than  this 
that  the  mystery  is  absolute  is  inscrutable  and  trans- 
cendent. 

If  we  bear  in  mind  what  reality  is  and  what  knowl- 
edge means,  we  shall  at  once  understand  that  any- 
thing absolutely  unknowable  must  be  non-existent. 
Whatever  exists  manifests  its  existence  by  affecting 
other  existences.  Reality  is  Wirklichkeit,  viz.,  that 
which  works,  or  manifests  itself  in  effects.  Knowl- 
edge, however,  means  representation;  whatever  affects 
sensation,  either  directly  or  indirectl}',  can  be  repre- 
sented in  thought,  and  whatever  can  be  represented 
in  thought  is  describable,  i.  e.,  knowable. 

That  knowledge  is  relative,  depending  upon  the 
relation  between  subject  and  object,  renders  knowl- 
edge as  little  illusory  as  existence  becomes  unreal  by 
being  subject  to  causation.  Unknowable  is  only  that 
which  does  not  manifest  itself,  everything  real  acts, 
alles  wirkliche  wirkt,  and  becomes  thereby  represent- 
able  and  describable. 

Agnosticism  has  not  freed  the  world  from  the 
ghosts   of   metaphysicism,    and    cannot    conquer   the 


62  MR.   spencer's  AGNOSTICISM. 

spook  of  supernaturalism.  It  has  confessedly  nothing 
to  do  with  them  :  it  lets  them  alone  ;  but  the  goblins 
of  mysticism  lead  a  safe  life  in  the  realm  of  the  un- 
knowable. 

* 
*  * 

Mr.  Spencer's  philosophy  is  a  strange  mixture  of 
dogmatism  with  agnosticism.  His  agnosticism  is  a 
veil  that  covers  unproved  and  unprovable  assump- 
tions. Mr.  Spencer  would  free  his  philosophy  of  evolu- 
tion of  its  main  inconsistency  if  he  discarded  the  term 
unknowable.  Take  for  instance  the  following  sen- 
tence : 

' '  Those  modes  of  the  Unknowable  which  we  call  motion 
heat,  light,  chemical  afiBnity,  etc.,  are  alike  transformable  into 
each  other,  and  into  those  modes  of  the  Unknowable  which  we 
distinguish  as  sensation,  emotion,  thought." 

The  principle  of  economy  is  most  recommendable 
everywhere,  in  practical  life,  in  science,  and  also  in 
matters  of  style.  Would  it  not  be  quite  an  improve- 
ment in  Mr.  Spencer's  writings  if  he  dropped  through- 
out the  term  "Unknowable,"  confining  himself  only 
to  statements  of  that  which  is  known.  The  same  sen- 
tence unencumbered  with  the  "Unknowable"  would 
read : 

"Motion,  heat,  light,  chemical  affinity,  etc.,  are  alike  trans- 
formable into  each  other  and  into  sensation,  emotion,  thought." 

Would  not  this  simplify  Mr.  Spencer's  ideas  and 
render  his  positive  propositions  more  concise? 

If  everything  is  unknowable,  of  course,  motion 
may  be  as  easily  converted  into  emotion  as  ink  into 
thought,  but  a  little  consideration  will  teach  us  that 
the  ideas  which  I  write  down  are  not  ink  and  that  the 
psychological  changes  in  the  brain  which  are  accom- 
panied with  feelings  are  not  themselves  and  as  such 


I 


MR.    spencer's  agnosticism.  63 

sensations.  No  psychologist  to  day,  not  even,  per- 
haps the  most  rabid  anti-supernaturalist,  would  allow 
Mr.  Spencer's  dogmatic  statement  to  go  unchallenged. 

* 
*  * 

The  importance  which  Mr.  Spencer  attributes  to 
the  Unknowable  in  his  theoretical  world-conception 
ought  to  give  it  a  prominent  place  also  in  his  ethics, 
for  ethics  is  nothing  but  the  practical  application  of  a 
theory.  His  philosophy  is  not  a  unitary  and  consist- 
ent system,  but  an  amalgamation  of  several  incom- 
patible systems.  A  consistent  ethics  of  agnosticism 
would  be  mysticism,  i.  e.,  a  theory  which  holds  that 
we  feel  impelled  to  do  our  duty  without  being  able  to 
explain  the  nature  of  duty ;  what  conscience,  justice, 
morality,  etc.,  really  are,  Mr,  Spencer  ought  to  say, 
can  never  be  known.  A  consistent  ethics  of  the  phi- 
losophy of  evolution  would  be  evolutionism,  i.  e.,  the 
proposition  "good  is  that  which  enhances  the  process 
of  evolution,  bad  is  that  which  hinders  it  or  prepares 
a  dissolution."  Mr.  Spencer  neglects  his  theories, 
agnosticism  as  well  as  evolutionism,  entirely  in  his 
ethics,  which  is  a  refined  Hedonism,  and  I  cannot 
help  considering  this  as  an  inconsistency  on  Mr, 
Spencer's  part. 

That  Mr,  Spencer's  philosophy  is  lacking  in  more 
than  one  respect  in  consistency  is  a  truth  unknown 
only  to  his  blind  followers;  but  the  fact  becomes  at 
once  obvious  to  every  one  who  attempts  to  condense 
his  views.  Ueberweg,  for  instance,  says  in  his  History 
of  Philosophy  (translated  from  the  fourth  German  edi- 
tion by  Geo.  S.  Morris,  p.  432)  in  a  synopsis  of  Mr. 
Spencer's  views  about  matter  and  mind,  which  are 
declared  to  be  unknowable  in  First  Principles; 


64  MR.   spencer's  agnosticism. 

"As  to  what  matter  and  mind  are,  he  [Mr.  Spencer]  replies 
sometimes  that  we  can  know  it,  because  a  being  is  required  to 
manifest  phenomena,  sometimes  because  persistence  in  conscious- 
ness supposes  correspondence  in  permanent  forces,  sometimes  be- 
cause the  two  conceptions  are  the  same,  sometimes  that  matter 
and  mind  are  simply  bundles  or  series  of  phenomena  and  nothing 
besides.  Sometimes  he  reasons  as  though  causality  were  a  direct 
and  self-evident  relation,  and  sometimes  as  though  this  relation 
were  nothing  more  than  an  order  of  sensations  and  our  belief  in  it 
were  the  growth  of  inseparable  associations." 

Ueberweg  sums  up  his  review  of  Mr.  Spencer  in 
the  following  paragraph  : 

"The  system  of  Spencer  is  still  under  criticism,  and  perhaps 
may  not  have  been  fully  expounded  by  its  author.  Possibly  it  has 
not  yet  been  completely  developed.  Should  Spencer  continue  to 
devote  to  philosophy  his  active  energies  for  many  years,  it  is  not 
inconceivable  that  new  associations  may  take  possession  of  that 
physiological  organisation  which  he  is  accustomed  to  call  himself, 
and  perhaps  be  evolved  under  another  system  of  first  principles 
which  may  displace  those  which  he  taught  hitherto." 

Mr.  Spencer  has  also  tried  to  reconcile  science  and 
religion,  and  he  does  it  on  the  basis  of  the  Unknow- 
able. The  Unknowable  is  very  convenient  for  every 
sleight-of-hand  trick,  and  would  lend  itself  as  easily  to 
the  reconciliation  of  Reason  and  Absurdity. 

The  first  chapter  of  the  Fi7-st  Principles  (p.  46) 
ends  with  the  following  sentences : 

"  And  thus  the  mystery  which  all  religions  recognise  turns  out 
to  be  a  far  more  transcendent  mystery  than  any  of  them  suspect, 
— not  a  relative,  but  an  absolute  mystery* 

"  Here,  then,  is  an  ultimate  religious  truth  of  the  highest  pos- 
sible certainty  [!] — a  truth  in  which  religions  in  general  are  at  one 
with  each  other  and  with  a  philosophy  antagonistic  to  their  special 
dogmas.  And  this  truth,  respecting  which  there  is  a  latent  agree- 
ment among  all  mankind  from  the  fetish-worshipper  to  the  most 
stoical  critic  of  human  creeds,  must  be  the  one  we  seek.  If  Re- 
*  Italics  are  ours. 


MR.    spencer's  agnosticism.  65 

ligion  and  Science  are  to  be  reconciled,  the  basis  of  reconciliation 
must  be  this  deepest,  widest,  and  most  certain  [!]  of  all  facts — 
that  the  Power  of  which  the  Universe  manifests  to  us  is  utterly 
inscrutable."* 

Mr.  Spencer's  reconciliation  of  religion  and  science 
on  the  basis  of  the  Unknowable  appears  to  lis  very 
unsatisfactory;  and  it  will  be  seen  to  be  impracticable 
because  it  rests  upon  erroneous  premises.  It  is  not 
true  that  on  the  one  side  religion  is  based  upon  the 
unknown  or  unknowable,  and  on  the  other  side  that 
the  ultimate  ideas  of  science  are  inscrutable  and  rep- 
resentative of  realities  that  cannot  be  comprehended. 

Religion  is  everywhere  based  upon  tlie  known  and 
knowable.  The  savage  worships  the  thunderstorm, 
not  because  it  is  something  inscrutable  to  him,  but 
because  he  is  afraid  of  it ;  he  actually  knows  that  it  can 
do  him  harm.  The  obvious  danger  connected  with  a 
phenomenon  makes  man  anxious  to  adapt  his  conduct 
to  it,  so  that  he  will  escape  unscathed. 

If  a  phenomenon  (lightning,  dreams,  pangs  of  con- 
science) is  not  sufficiently  known  in  its  causes,  this 
will  breed  erroneous  conceptions  or  superstitions,  i.  e. 
false  religion  ;  and  there  is  no  conciliation  possible 
between  the  latter  and  science.  It  is  true  that  the 
facts  of  nature  which  have  made  man  religious  were 
misunderstood  by  the  savage,  and  most  facts  are  still 
Jittle  understood  by  the  scientists  to-day.  But  it  is 
not  this  lack  of  comprehension  upon  which  religion 
was  then  and  is  now  based ;  on  the  contrary,  religion 
is  based  upon  the  more  or  less  clearly  conceived  idea 
that  we  have  to  conform  to  a  power  stronger  tluin  we 
ourselves.  There  is  an  authority  above  all  human 
authority;  it  is  in  science  the  authority  of  truth,  in 

*  Italics  are  ours. 


66  MR.  spenxer's  agnosticism. 

the  domain  of  practical  life  the  authority  of  right,  and 
this  authority  is  not  personal  but  superpersonal.  The 
reconciliation  of  religion  with  science,  as  we  under- 
stand it,  can  be  brought  about  only  by  a  purification 
of  our  conception  of  the  authority  to  which  we  have  to 
submit.  That  religion  will  be  the  purest  and  highest 
which  holds  forth  the  simple  statement  of  provable 
truth  as  the  basis  of  ethics  ;  and  this  religion  cannot 
be  in  conflict  with  science,  for  it  is  to  be  based  upon 
that  which  we  know,  and  not  upon  that  which  we  do 
not  know.  If  a  religion,  based  upon  that  which  we 
do  not  know,  be  found  to  be  reconcilable  with  science, 
it  will  be  mere  haphazard,  a  matter  of  pure  chance, 
and  at  any  rate  the  principle  of  such  a  religion  will 
under  all  circumstances  be  antagonistic  to  science. 

The  actual  fact  is  that  a  partial  knowledge  of  cer- 
tain natural  phenomena  (frequently  wrong,  sometimes 
right,  at  least  in  its  practical  application)  is  the  basis 
of  religious  action. 

Religion  asserts  itself  as  an  instinct ;  in  its  higher 
stage  it  is  refined  into  conscience,  and  in  its  further 
growth  is  destined  to  becomie  more  and  more  scien- 
tific. But  even  con-scie?ice,  though  instinctive  and 
sometimes  unclear,  is  not  nescience,  but  (as  the  word 
indicates)  a  budding  "science," — a  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil  growing  secretly,  in  the  realm  of  subliminal 
soul-life,  as  the  moral  instinct  of  man. 

On  the  one  hand,  religion  is  not  based  upon  the 
unknown  ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  ultimate  scien- 
tific ideas  are  not  incomprehensible. 

Monists  consider  the  positive  element  of  knowl- 
edge the  main  thing,  while  Mr.  Spencer  on  the  contrary 
eliminates  the  positive  element  of  knowledge  and  re- 
tains the  negative  element  of  ignorance,  the  quint- 


MR.    spencer's  agnosticism.  67 

essence  of  which  he  calls  "the  Unknowable," — ob- 
livious of  the  fact  that  in  reality  there  are  no  such 
things  as  negative  magnitudes.  While  Monism  leads 
to  the  formulation  of  a  Religion  of  Science,  Mr.  Spen- 
cer proposes  a  philosophy  of  nescience,  and  his  con- 
ception of  religion  is  the  acquiescence  in  the  assump- 
tion of  an  Unknowable.  Our  conception  of  God  is 
the  recognition  of  that  superpersonal  power  to  which 
we  have  to  conform,  and  our  knowledge  of  it  increases 
with  the  progress  of  science,  while  Mr.  Spencer's  idea 
of  God  is  the  inscrutable  mystery  which  has  no  reality 
in  the  objective  world,  but  exists  in  his  imagination 
only. 

It  is  just  as  erroneous  for  a  philosopher  to  extract 
that  which  we  do  not  know  as  the  quintessence  of  re- 
ligious belief,  as  it  would  be  for  a  chemist  to  extract 
all  those  substances  of  a  body  which  it  does  not  con- 
tain and  to  consider  them  as  the  real  thing. 

The  negative  magnitude  of  the  notyet  known  is, 
as  all  mere  possibilities  must  be,  infinite.  If  this 
negative  magnitude  were  indeed  a  positive  existence 
and  the  essential  thing  in  religion,  it  would  dwarf  all 
progress  into  insignificance  and  would  stamp  upon 
all  our  aspirations  the  curse  of  vanity. 

Mr.  Spencer's  proposition  of  the  Reconciliation  o^ 
Science  with  religion  is  the  assurance  that  science  will 
leave  always  an  unbounded  territory  for  all  kinds  of 
unwarranted  assumptions  and  superstitions,  while  our 
proposition  implies  the  purification  of  religion  from 
erroneous  notions.  It  is  the  proposition  of  a  great 
work  to  be  accomplished. 

* 

Philosophy  is  not  mere  theory,  it  is  of  practical 
importance.     Being  the  expression  of  our  conception 


68  MR.  spencer's  agnosticism. 

of  the  world,  it  determines,  perhaps  slowly  but  decis- 
ively and  unfailingly,  our  attitude  in  life.  Spencerian- 
ism,  that  is  to  say,  a  dilettantism  in  philosophy,  has 
saturated  our  intellectual  atmosphere  and  is  apt  to 
make  our  growing  generation,  our  students  at  the 
universities  and  our  young  professional  men,  includ- 
ing our  theologians  who  heretofore  have  been  Mr. 
Spencer's  enemies,  superficial  and  satisfied  with  nega- 
tions. 

Agnostic  stock  phrases,  unmeaning  though  they 
are,  fill  the  air  and  are  accepted  as  axioms,  poisoning 
philosophy,  science,  psychology,  and  ethics.  We  are 
told  that  "the  finite  cannot  comprehend  the  infinite  ;  "* 
that  the  ultimate  nature  of  matter  and  motion  "f"  is  an 
inscrutable  mystery;  that  "the  substance  of  the  mind 
remains  forever  unknown  ;"  |  that  ethics  means  "the 
greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number  ;"  §  and 
generalisation  II  is  praised  as  the  highest  accomplish- 
ment of  the  human  mind,  no  use  being  made  of  dis- 
crimination, vvhich  is  the  more  important  and  at  the 
same  time  rarer  faculty  of  mind  which  distinguishes 
the  man  of  science.^ 

*Se&  Fundamental  Problems,  p.  i6i  ff.,  p.  169  ff.,  p.  287  ff ;  the  "  Salutatory" 
in  the  January  number  of  The  Open  Court,  1897,  ?•  9  !  ^nd  Homilies  of  Science, 
pp.  108-111.     Cf.  p.  55  of  the  present  booklet. 

tThe  terms  matter  and  motion  are  the  most  general  terms  of  their  kind. 
The  idea  of  matter  is  not  more  mysterious  than  "  lead,  copper,  zinc,  wood," 
etc.,  but  simpler  and  less  mysterious. 

tMind  is  spiritual  and  does  not  consist  of  substances  of  any  kind.  We 
may  inquire  into  the  nature  of  mind  but  the  very  phrase  "  substance  of  mind  '• 
is  a  self-stultification  and  starts  the  investigator  in  the  wrong  direction. 

§iFor  a  treatment  of  this  problem  in  humorous  form  see  the  author's  tale 
"The  Philosopher's  Martyrdom,"  in  Truth  in  Fiction.     (Chicago,  1893). 

II  See  Fundamental  Problems,  pp,  loi  ff. 

^This  article  is  not  intended  to  exhaust  the  subject,  and  the  reader  is  re 
ferred  to  other  essays  of  the  author.  The  Primer  of  Philosophy,  the  article 
"Are  There  Things  in  Themselves?  "  in  The  Monist,  Vol.  II,  No.  2,  p.  225. 


MR.  spf.n'ckr's  AG^•osTICIS^f.  6g 

We  cannot  here  discuss  all  these  questions  as  they 
deserve,  and  repeat  only  what  we  have  stated  on  for- 
mer occasions,  that  agnosticism  as  an  attitude  is 
praiseworthy,  but  as  a  doctrine  objectionable. 

If  we  understand  by  agnosticism  that,  before  we 
have  good  reasons  to  say,  we  know  a  certain  thing,  we 
must  suspend  our  judgment,  it  is  highly  recommend- 
able.  If  a  confession  of  ignorance  is  to  be  called 
agnosticism,  it  is  the  agnosticism  of  modesty  ;  and 
there  is  no  one,  be  he  ever  so  wise  and  learned,  who 
would  not  in  a  great  many  fields  have  to  own  that  he 
is  an  agnostic. 

But  the  case  is  at  once  changed  if  a  man  argues 
that  because  he  does  not  know,  no  one  can  know.  He 
makes  of  agnosticism  a  doctrine,  and  the  modesty  of 
his  declaration  of  ignorance  is  transformed  into  arro- 
gance. The  agnosticism  of  modesty  is  the  beginning  of 
wisdom,  but  the  agnosticism  of  arrogance  is  the  worst 
kind  of  dogmatism  ;  it  is  illiberal  because  it  declares 
that  no  one  else  can  have  anything  to  say  worth  listen- 
ing to ;  it  is  reactionary  because  it  prevents  investi- 
gation and  stops  progress  ;  it  is  antiscientific  because 
if  its  premises  are  true  a  sage  knows  as  little  as  a  fool ; 
it  is  unphilosophical  because  instead  of  proposing  a 
solution  of  the  main  problems  of  existence  it  declares 
them  to  be  insolvable  and  thus  may  be  called  a  de- 
claration of  philosophical  bankruptcy.  In  fine,  we  re 
ject  agnosticism  as  a  philosophy  unfit  for  adoption 
and  even  dangerous  if  taken  seriously. 

It  is  a  matter  of  course  that  in  rejecting  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's agnosticism  we  do  not  mean  to  say  that  it  did 
not  serve  a  good  purpose  as  a  transitional  phase. 

Mr.  Spencer  appeared  at  a  juncture  when  a  philos- 
ophy was  needed  that  remained  on  the  surface  and 


•JO  MR.    SPENCER'S  AGNOSTICISM. 

indulged  in  glittering  generalities.  His  dogmatism  is 
well  adapted  to  those  who  had  just  freed  themselves 
from  the  yoke  of  creeds.  Thus  he  became  the  rec- 
ognised apostle  of  the  last  half  century,  first  among 
the  broad  middle  classes  of  North  America  who  were 
hungry  for  some  philosophy  which  would  be  intel- 
ligible and  then  also  in  his  own  country.  But  the  time 
has  now  come,  when  the  people  demand  solid  food 
instead  of  husks.  Mr.  Spencer's  authority  is  waning 
and  he  remains  the  oracle  of  progressive  thought  only 
among  those  classes  who  lack  critical  acumen. 

The  rise  of  Mr.  Spencer's  fame  is  as  natural  as  its 
decline. 

His  place  in  the  history  of  philosophy  is  that  of  an 
^wakener  from  traditionalism.  He  made  the  people 
doubt  and  roused  a  philosophical  interest  in  large 
masses  who  were  heretofore  indifferent  to  philosophic 
thought  and  perhaps  entirely  unable  to  think  for  them- 
selves. While  Mr.  Spencer's  purely  negative  doctrine 
will  prove  to  be  very  shortlived,  not  having  roots  to 
give  it  strength,  the  impetus  which  he  gave  to  rational 
enquiry  will  be  ineradicably  lasting  even  when  the 
present  generation,  and  with  it  the  need  that  gave 
currency  to  his  agnosticism,  has  long  long  passed 
away. 


MR.  SPENCER'S  COMMENT  AND  THE 
AUTHOR'S  REPLY. 

MR.  HERBERT  SPENCER  in  a  republication  of 
his  essay :  The  Ethics  of  Kant  together  with 
many  other  older  articles  in  a  work  of  three  volumes 
entitled  Essays  Scientific,  Political,  and  Speculative, 
1891,  repeats  the  following  sentence: 

"Thus  the  basis  of  the  argument  by  which  Kant 
attempts  to  justify  his  assumption  that  there  exists  a 
good  will  apart  from  a  good  end,  disappears  utterly  ; 
and  leaves  his  dogma  in  all  its  naked  unthinkable- 
ness." 

To  this  sentence  he  adds  in  a  foot-note  a  comment 
on  my  criticisms,  which  is  here  reproduced. 

MR.  SPENCERS  COMMENT. 

"  I  find  that  in  the  above  three  paragraphs  I  have 
done  Kant  less  than  justice  and  more  than  justice — 
less,  in  assuming  that  his  evolutionary  view  was  lim- 
ited to  the  genesis  of  our  sidereal  system,  and  more, 
in  assuming  that  he  had  not  contradicted  himself. 
My  knowledge  of  Kant's  writings  is  extremely  limited. 
In  1844  a  translation  of  his  'Critique  of  Pure  Reason' 
(then  I  think  lately  published)  fell  into  my  hands,  and 
I  read  the  first  few  pages  enunciating  his  doctrine  of 
Time  and  Space  :  my  peremptory  rejection  of  which 
caused  me  to  lay  the  book  down.  Twice  since  then 
the  same  thing  has  happened  ;  for,  being  an  impatient 
reader,  when  I  disagree  with  the  cardinal  propositions 


72  MR.    SPE\CER'S  comment. 

of  a  work  I  can  go  no  further.  One  other  thing  I 
knew.  By  indirect  references  I  was  made  aware  that 
Kant  had  propounded  the  idea  that  celestial  bodies 
have  been  formed  by  the  aggregation  of  diffused  mat- 
ter. Beyond  this  my  knowledge  of  his  conceptions 
did  not  extend;  and  my  supposition  that  his  evolu- 
tionary conception  had  stopped  short  with  the  genesis 
of  sun,  stars,  and  planets,  was  due  to  the  fact  that  his 
doctrine  of  Time  and  Space,  as  forms  of  thought  an- 
teceding  experience,  implied  a  supernatural  origin  in- 
consistent with  the  hypothesis  of  natural  genesis.  Dr. 
Paul  Carus,  who,  shortly  after  the  publication  of  this 
article  in  the  Fortnightly  Rcvuzv  for  July,  1888,  under- 
took to  defend  the  Kantian  ethics  in  the  American 
journal  which  he  edits,  The  Open  Court,  has  now 
(Sept.  4,  i8go),  in  another  defensive  article,  trans- 
lated sundry  passages  from  Kant's  '  Critique  of  Judg- 
ment,' his  'Presumable  Origin  of  Humanity,'  and  his 
work  '  Upon  the  different  Races  of  Mankind,'  showing 
that  Kant  was,  if  not  fully,  yet  partially,  an  evolu- 
tionist in  his  speculations  about  living  beings.  There 
is,  perhaps,  some  reason  for  doubting  the  correctness 
of  Dr.  Carus's  rendering  of  these  passages  into  Eng- 
lish. When,  as  in  the  first  of  the  articies  just  named, 
he  failed  to  distinguish  between  consciousness  and 
conscientiousness,  and  when,  as  in  this  last  article,  he 
blames  the  English  for  mistranslating  Kant,  since  they 
have  said  '  Kant  maintained  that  Space  and  Time  are 
intuitions,'  which  is  quite  untrue,  for  they  have  every- 
where described  him  as  maintaining  that  Space  and 
Time  are  forms  of  intuition,  one  may  be  excused  for 
thinking  that  possibly  Dr.  Carus  has  read  into  some 
of  Kant's  expressions,  meanings  which  they  do  not 
rightly  bear.     Still,  the  general  drift  of  the  passages 


MR.  spencer's  comment.  73 

quoted  makes  it  tolerably  clear  that  Kant  must  have 
believed  in  the  operation  of  natural  causes  as  largely, 
though  not  entirely,  instrumental  in  producing  organic 
forms:  extending  this  belief  (which  he  says  'can  be 
named  a  daring  venture  of  reason')  in  some  measure 
to  the  origin  of  Man  himself.  He  does  not,  however, 
extend  the  theory  of  natural  genesis  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  theory  of  supernatural  genesis.  When  he  speaks 
of  an  organic  habit  '  which  in  the  wisdom  of  nature 
appears  to  be  thus  arranged  in  order  that  the  species 
shall  be  preserved ';  and  when,  further,  he  says  'we 
see,  moreover,  that  a  germ  of  reason  is  placed  in  him, 
whereby,  after  the  development  of  the  same,  he  is 
destined  for  social  intercourse,'  he  implies  divine  inter- 
vention. And  this  shows  that  I  was  justified  in 
ascribing  to  him  the  belief  that  Space  and  Time,  as 
forms  of  thought,  are  supernatural  endowments.  Had 
he  conceived  of  organic  evolution  in  a  consistent  man- 
ner, he  would  necessarily  have  regarded  Space  and 
Time  as  subjective  forms  generated  by  converse  with 
objective  realities. 

"Beyond  showing  that  Kant  had  a  partial,  if  not 
a  complete,  belief  in  organic  evolution  (though  with 
no  idea  of  its  causes),  the  passages  translated  by  Dr. 
Carus  show  that  he  entertained  an  implied  belief 
which  it  here  specially  concerns  me  to  notice  as  bear- 
ing on  his  theory  of  'a  good  will.'  He  quotes  approv- 
ingly Dr.  Moscati's  lecture  showing  'that  the  upright 
walk  of  man  is  constrained  and  unnatural,'  and  show- 
ing the  imperfect  visceral  arrangements  and  con- 
sequent diseases  which  result :  not  only  adopting,  but 
further  illustrating.  Dr.  Moscati's  argument.  If  here, 
then,  there  is  a  distinct  admission,  or  rather  assertion, 
that  various  human  organs  are  imperfectly  adjusted  to 


74  THE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY. 

their  functions,  what  becomes  of  the  postulate  above 
quoted  '  that  no  organ  for  any  purpose  will  be  found 
in  it  but  what  is  also  the  fittest  and  best  adapted  for 
that  purpose'?  And  what  becomes  of  the  argument 
which  sets  out  with  this  postulate?  Clearly,  I  am  in- 
debted to  Dr.  Carus  for  enabling  me  to  prove  that 
Kant's  defence  of  his  theory  of  'a  good  will'  is,  by  his 
own  showing,  baseless." 

REPLY  TO  MR.  SPENCER. 

Mr.  Spencer's  comments  on  my  criticisms  are  sur- 
prising in  more  than  one  respect. 

First,  without  even  mentioning  the  objections  I 
make  he  discredits  my  arguments  by  throwing  doubt 
upon  the  correctness  of  the  translations  of  the  quoted 
passages. 

Secondly,  he  alleges,  with  a  view  of  justifying  his 
doubt,  that  in  the  first  of  my  articles  I  "failed  to  dis- 
tinguish between  consciousness  and  conscientious- 
ness." 

Thirdly,  Mr.  Spencer  declares  that  I  had  "read 
into  some  of  Kant's  expressions,  meanings  which  they 
do  not  rightly  bear." 

Fourthly,  Mr.  Spencer  bases  this  opinion  upon  a 
double  mistake  :  he  blames  me  for  not  distinguishing 
between  the  Kantian  phrases  that  "Space  and  Time 
are  intuitions"  and  that  they  are  "forms  of  intuition." 

Fifthly,  acknowledging  after  all  that  Kant  had  at 
least  "a  partial  belief  in  organic  evolution,"  Mr. 
Spencer  accuses  him  of  inconsistency. 

Sixthly,  several  statements  concerning  Kant's 
views  are  made  not  because  Kant  held  them  but  be- 
cause Mr.  Spencer  assumes  for  trivial  reason-s  that  he 
is  "justified  in  ascribing  them  to  him." 


i 


THF.  AUIHOk'S   REPLY.  75 

Seventhly,  these  statements  so  vigorously  set  forth 
are  accompanied  by  Mr.  Spencer's  remarkably  frank 
confession  of  unfamiliarity  with  the  subject  under  dis- 
cussion. 

It  may  be  added  that  Mr.  Spencer  calls  my  crit- 
icisms "defensive  articles."  He  says  that  I  "under- 
took to  defend  the  Kantian  ethics  ";  while  in  fact,  my 
articles  are  aggressive.  Kant  needs  no  defence  for 
being  misunderstood,  and  it  would  not  be  my  business 
to  defend  him,  for  I  am  not  a  Kantian  in  the  sense 
that  I  adopt  any  of  the  main  doctrines  of  Kant.  On 
the  contrary  I  dissent  from  him  on  almost  all  funda- 
mental questions.  In  ethics  I  object  to  Kant's  views 
in  so  far  as  they  can  be  considered  as  pure  formalism.* 
I  am  a  Kantian  only  in  the  sense  that  I  respect  Kant 
as  one  of  the  most  eminent  philosophers,  that  I  revere 
him  as  that  teacher  of  mine  whose  influence  upon  me 
was  greatest,  and  I  consider  the  study  of  Kant's  works 
as  an  indispensable  requisite  for  understanding  the 
problems  of  the  philosophy  of  our  time.  Far  from 
defending  Kant's  position,  I  only  undertook  to  inform 
Mr.  Spencer  of  what  Kant  had  really  maintained,  so 
that  instead  of  denouncing  absurdities  which  Kant  had 
never  thought  of,  he  might  criticise  the  real  Kant. 

*  * 

What  does  Anschauung  mean?  No  one  can  under- 
stand Kant  who  misconceives  Kant's  use  of  the  term 
Anschauung.  The  subject  is  of  great  importance  and 
Mr.  Spencer's  erroneous  statement  that  Kant  conceives 
space  and  time  as  forms  of  thought  instead  of  forms 
of  intuition  induces  me  to  make  a  few  explanatory  re- 
marks concerning  the  term  Anschauung. 

*See  FunJi2;iu'fi/a/  Prot/tfiis,  pp.  197-206;  and  The  Ethical  ProbU-ni,  p.  33, 
et  seq.,  especially  p.  33,  lines  18-20, 


76  THE  author's  rfply. 

Kant  means  that  space  and  time  are  immediately 
given  in  experience  and  not  inferences  drawn  from  the 
data  of  experience  ;  they  are  not  thoughts,  but  objects 
of  direct  perception. 

Sense-impressions  are  data,  they  are  prior  to  ideas, 
the  latter  being  constructions  made  out  of  sense-im- 
pressions. Sense-impressions  are  facts,  but  ideas  are 
of  an  inferential  nature  ;  they  are  (to  use  Lloyd  Mor- 
gan's excellent  term)  constructs.  Now  Kant  claims 
that  space  and  time  are  in  the  same  predicament  as 
the  resistance  of  material  objects.  They  are  not  ob- 
jects, they  are  mere  forms  ;  but  like  objects,  they  are 
immediately  given,  they  belong  to  Anschaitung. 

Kant  was  very  careful  on  the  one  hand  to  show 
that  time  and  space  are  mere  forms  and  not  objects  or 
essences  and  on  the  other  hand  that  they  are  not  ideas, 
not  thoughts,  not  abstractions,  not  generalisations, 
but  that  they  are  as  direct  data  as  are  sense-impres- 
sions and  he  calls  the  knowledge  which  man  has  by 
directly  facing  the  object  of  knowledge  "Anschauung.'" 

The  conclusion  which  Kant  draws  from  this  may 
be  characterised  as  follows  : 

Sensations  are  not  things  but  appearances ;  they 
are  subjective,  not  objective,  they  are  not  the  objects 
themselves  but  what  our  sensibility  makes  of  objects. 
Space  and  time  being  Anschauungen,  Kant  argues  that 
they  are  of  the  same  kind  as  the  sense-data  of  knowl- 
edge, that  they  are  inherent  in  our  nature.  Thus  Kant 
maintains  :  "  Sensations  are  the  products  of  our  sen- 
sibility, and  space  and  time  are  the  forms  of  our  sen- 
sibility." 

The  word  Anschauuug  has  been  a  crux  interpretum 
since  translations  have  been  made  from  Kant,  and  it 


THE  author's  reply.  77 

is  quite  true  that  no  adequate  word  to  express  it  ex- 
ists in  English. 

The  Journal  of  Speculative  Philosophy  contains  sev- 
eral notes  on  this  mooted  subject.  The  following  is 
from  the  pen  of  Dr.  W.  T.  Harris  (Vol.  II,  p.  igi): 

"Through  a  singular  chance,  the  present  number  of  the 
Journal  contains  two  notes  from  two  contributors  on  the  proper 
translation  of  the  German  word  Anschauung.  Mr.  Kroeger  holds 
that  the  word  Anschauung,  as  used  by  Fichte  and  also  by  Kant, 
denotes  an  act  of  the  Ego  which  the  English  word  in/uitwn  does 
not  at  all  express,  but  for  which  the  English  word  'contemplation 
is  an  exact  equivalent.  Mr.  Peirce  suggests  that  no  person  whose 
native  tongue  is  English  will  translate  Anschauung  by  another 
word  than  intuition.  Whether  there  is  a  failure  to  understand 
English  on  the  one  hand  or  German  on  the  other,  the  Editor  does 
not  care  to  inquire.  It  is  certain  that  while  intuition  has  been 
adopted  generally  as  an  equivalent  for  the  word  under  considera- 
tion both  by  English  and  French  translators,  yet  it  was  a  wide  de- 
parture from  the  ordinary  English  use  of  the  term.  Besides  this, 
we  have  no  English  verb  intuilc  (at  least  in  the  dictionaries),  and 
the  reader  will  find  that  the  verb  used  by  Meiklejohn  (in  the  trans- 
lation of  Kant's  Kritik)  for  it,  is  contemplate,  and  the  same  ren- 
dering is  given  by  Smith  in  his  excellent  translation  of  Fichte's 
Popular  Works  (London,  1849)." 

Mr.  Charles  S.  Peirce  says  : 

"No  person  whose  native  tongue  is  English  will  need  to  be 
informed  that  contemplation  is  essentially  (i)  protracted  (2)  vole 
untary,  and  (3)  an  action,  and  that  it  is  never  used  for  that  which  is 
set  forth  to  the  mind  in  this  act.  A  foreigner  can  convince  himself 
of  this  by  the  proper  study  of  English  writers.  Thus,  Locke  {Es- 
say concerning  Human  Understanding,  Book  IL,  chap.  19,  §  1) 
says,  '  If  it  [an  idea]  be  held  there  [in  view]  long  under  attentiv- 
consideration,  'tis  contemplation  \  and  again,  (/hid.,  Book  II.. 
chap.  10,  §  i)  "Keeping  the  Idea,  which  is  brought  info  it  [the 
mind]  for  some  time  actually  in  view,  which  is  called  Contempla- 
tion.' This  term  is  therefore  unfitted  io  irVinsX&ie  Anschauung  ; 
for  this  latter  does  not  imply  an  act  which  is  necessarily  protracted 
or  voluntary,  and  denotes  most  usually  a  mental  presentation. 


78  THE  author's  reply, 

sometimes  a  faculty,  less  often  the  reception  of  an  impression  in 
the  mind,  and  seldom,  if  ever,  an  action. 

"  To  the  translation  of  Anschauung  by  intuition,  there  is,  at 
least,  no  such  insufferable  objection.  Etymologically  the  two  words 
precisely  correspond.  The  original  philosophical  meaning  of  intui- 
tion was  a  cognition  of  the  present  manifold  in  that  character ;  and 
it  is  now  commonly  used,  as  a  modern  writer  says,  '  to  include  all 
the  products  of  the  perceptive  (external  or  internal)  and  imagine 
ative  faculties ;  every  act  of  consciousness,  in  short,  of  which  the 
immediate  object  is  an  individual,  thing,  act,  or  state  of  mind, 
presented  under  the  condition  of  distinct  existence  in  space  and 
time.'  Finally,  we  have  the  authority  of  Kant's  own  example  for 
translating  his  Aiischauung  by  hituitus;  and,  indeed,  this  is  the 
common  usage  of  Germans  writing  Latin.  Moreover,  inttiitiv 
frequently  replaces  anschauend  or  anschaulich.  If  this  constitutes 
a  misunderstanding  of  Kant,  it  is  one  which  is  shared  by  himself 
and  nearly  all  his  countrymen"  {ihid.  p.  152  et  seqq.) 

Mr.  Peirce  adds  the  following  explanation  concern- 
ing the  term  intuition  in  another  note  {ibid.  p.  103) : 

"The  word  intuitus  first  occurs  as  a  technical  term  in  St. 
Anselm's  Monologium.  He  wished  to  distinguish  between  our 
knowledge  of  God  and  our  knowledge  of  finite  things  (and,  in  the 
next  world,  of  God,  also)  ;  and  thinking  of  the  saying  of  St.  Paul, 
Videmus  yiimc  per  sfecidiitn  in  cenigmate ;  tunc  autem  facie  ad 
facicm,  he  called  the  former  specjdation  and  the  latter  intuition 
This  use  of  'speculation'  did  not  take  root,  because  that  word 
already  had  another  exact  and  widely  different  meaning. 

"In  the  middle  ages,  the  term  '  intuitive  cognition '  had  two 
principal  senses,  ist,  as  opposed  to  abstractive  cognition,  it  meant 
the  knowledge  of  the  present  as  present,  and  this  is  its  meaning  in 
Anselm  ;  but  2d,  as  no  intuitive  cognition  was  allowed  to  be  deter- 
mined by  a  previous  cognition,  it  came  to  be  used  as  the  opposite 
of  discursive  cognition  (see  Scotus,  In  sentent.  lib.  2,  dist.  3,  qu.  9), 
and  this  is  nearly  the  sense  in  which  I  employ  it.  This  is  also 
nearly  the  sense  in  which  Kant  uses  it,  the  former  distinction  be- 
ing expressed  by  his  sensuous  and  tion-sensuous.  (See  Werke, 
herausg.  Rosenkrantz,  Thl.  2,  S.  713,  31,  41,  100  u.  s.  w.) 

"An  enumeration  of  six  meanings  of  intuition  may  be  found 
in  Hamilton's  Reid  p.  759" 


1 


THE  AUTHOR  S  REPLY.  7g 

If  we  have  to  choose  between  the  two  translations 
intuition  and  contemplation,  we  should  with  Mr.  Peirce 
decidedly  prefer  the  word  intuition.  The  word  contem- 
plation corresponds  to  the  German  Betrachtung  and  all 
that  Mr.  Peirce  says  against  it  holds  good.  But  we 
must  confess  that  the  term  intuition  (as  Mr.  Peirce 
himself  seems  to  grant)  is  not  a  very  good  translation 
either.  The  term  intuition  has  other  meanings  which 
interfere  with  the  correct  meaning  of  Anschauung  and 
was  actually  productive  of  much  confusion. 

The  English  term  intuition  is  strongly  tinged  with 
the  same  meaning  that  is  attached  to  the  German 
word  Intuition.  It  means  an  inexplicable  kind  of  direct 
information  from  some  supernatural  source,  which 
mystics  claim  to  possess  as  the  means  of  their  revela- 
tions. In  this  sense  Goethe  characterises  it  satirically 
in  Faust  (Scene  XIV).  Mephistopheles  describes  the 
process  as  follows : 

"A  blessing  drawn  from  supernatural  fountains! 
In  night  and  dew  to  lie  upon  the  mountains ; 
All  Heaven  and  Earth  in  rapture  penetrating ; 
Thyself  to  Godhood  haughtily  inflating  ; 
To  grub  with  yearning  force  through  Earth's  dark  marrow, 
Compress  the  six  days'  work  within  thy  bosom  narrow, — 
To  taste,  I  know  not  what,  in  haughty  power, 
Thine  own  ecstatic  life  on  all  things  shower, 
Thine  earthly  self  behind  thee  cast, 
And  then  the  lofty  intuition  [with  a  gesture]  at  last." 

The  satire  is  good  on  Intuition  but  it  would  not 
apply  to  Anschauung,  for  the  latter  word  excludes 
rigidly  any  mysticism  or  supernaturalism  which  the 
former  essentially  involves.  To  employ  the  term  "in- 
tuition "  for  both  ideas  must  necessarily  weaken  tlie 
meaning  of  Anschauung. 


8o  THE  author's  REPLY. 

Besides  we  should  bear  in  mind  that  the  German 
Anschauung  is  vernacular  and  should  find  a  corres- 
ponding Saxon  word.  Such  Latin  words  as  intuition 
convey  in  English  as  much  as  in  German  the  impres 
sion  of  being  terms  denoting  something  very  abstract. 
Vernacular  terms  much  more  strongly  indicate  the 
immediateness  and  directness  which  is  implied  in  An- 
schauung. In  a  conversation  with  Mr.  F.  C.  Russell,  a 
lawyer  of  Chicago,  interested  in  philosophy,  we  tried 
to  coin  a  new  word  that  should  cover  the  meaning  of 
Anschauung  as  an  act  of  "atlooking,"  and  the  word 
"  atsight  "  readily  suggested  itself. 

The  word  "atsight  "  is  an  exact  English  equivalent 

of  the  German  Anschauung.      It  describes  the  looking 

at  an  object  in  its  immediate  presence.     At  the  same 

time  the  word  is  readily  understood,  while  philologic- 

ally  considered,  its  formation  is  fully  justified  by  the 

existence  of  the  words  "  insight  and  foresight." 

* 
*  * 

One  of  the  most  important  of  Kant's  doctrines  is 

the  proposition  that  all  thought  must  ultimately  have 

reference  to  Anschauung,   i.  e.    to  atsight.      Through 

atsight  only  the  objects  of  experience  can  be  given  us. 

All  speculations  not  founded  upon  this  bottom  rock 

of  knowledge  are  mere  dreams.    This  is  the  maxim  of 

positivism  and  it  is  the  basis  of  all  sound  philosophy. 

Says  Kant  in   the  "Anhang"   to  his  Prolegomena  (in 

reply  to  a  critic  who  had  misunderstood  his  idealism) 

as  a  summary  statement  of  his  views  : 

"  Der  Satz  aller  echteyi  Idealisten,  von  der  eleatischen  Schule 
an  his  zum  Bischof  Berkeley,  ist  in  dieser  Formel  enthalten. 
'alles  Erkenntnis  durch  Sinne  und  Erfahrmig  ist  nichts  a.s 
tauter  Schein,  und  nur  in  den  Ideen  des  reinen  Verstandes  und 
der  Vernunft  ist  Wahrtieit.' 


i 


THii  author's  replv.  8i 

" Dcr  Grundsatz,  der  meiucn  Idcalismus  durclif^iitifrif^  te- 
giert  und  bestimmt,  istdagcgen:  '  Alles  Erkcntiluis  I'on  Din- 
g^en,  aus  blosscm  reinen  Verstande  oder  rciiicr  Vcrjiunft,  ist 
tiichts  als  lautcr  Schcin,  und  >iur  in  dcr  Erfattrung  ist  W'ahr- 
heii:  " 

"The  doctrine  of  all  genuine  idealists  from  the  Eleatic  School 
down  to  Bishop  Berkeley  is  contained  in  this  formula  :  All  cogni- 
tion through  the  senses  and  experience  is  nothing  but  illusion  ;  and 
in  the  ideas  of  the  pure  understanding  and  reason  alone  is  truth. 

"The  principle,  however,  that  rules  and  determines  my  ideal- 
ism throughout  is  this  ;  All  cognition  out  of  pure  understanding  or 
pure  reason  is  nothing  but  mere  illusion  and  in  experience  alone  is 
truth." 

Kant  then  proposes  in  order  to  avoid  equivocation 
to  call  his  views  "formal  or  critical  idealism,"  adding 
that  his  idealism  made  any  other  idealism  impossible. 
Criticism  truly  is  the  beginning  of  philosophy  as  an 
objective  science.  It  gives  the  foi//)  de  grace  to  those 
worthless  declamations  which  still  pass  among  many 
as  philosophy.      Says  Kant  : 

"So  viel  ist  gczviss:  zver  einmal  Kritik  gekostet  hat,  den 
ekclt  auf  immer  allcs  dogmatische  Gewdsche." 

"  That  much  is  certain  :  He  who  has  once  tasted  critique  will 
be  forever  disgusted  with  all  dogmatic  twaddle." 

It  is  strange  that  in  spite  of  Kant's  explicit  declara- 
tion, which  leaves  no  doubt  about  the  positive  spirit 
that  pervades  the  principles  of  his  philosophy,  he  is 
still  misunderstood  by  his  opponents  and  frequently 
no  less  by  those  who  profess  to  be  his  disciples. 

There  is  no  occasion  now  to  treat  the  subject  ex- 
haustively, but  it  may  be  permitted  to  add  a  few  re- 
marks on  Kant's  proposition  that  space  and  time  are 
atsights. 


82  THE  author's  REPLY. 

We  must  distinguish  three  things  : 
i)  Objective  space. 

2)  Space  as  atsight,  and 

3)  Space-conception. 

Space  as  atsight  is  the  datum.  It  is  the  immediate 
presence  of  relations  among  the  sensory  impressions. 
This,  however,  is  not  as  yet  that  something  which  we 
generally  call  space.  That  which  generally  goes  by  the 
name  of,  space  is  a  construction  built  out  of  the  rela- 
tional data  that  obtain  in  experience  and  we  propose 
to  call  it  space-conception.  Our  space-conception, 
accordingly,  (and  here  I  include  the  mathematician's 
space-conception)  is  based  upon  space  as  atsight,  but 
it  is  more  than  atsight.  It  is  an  inference  made  there- 
from, it  is  the  product  of  experience.  Space-concep- 
tion, however,  is,  as  are  all  legitimate  noumena,  no 
mere  subjective  illusion,  it  possesses  objective  validity, 
it  describes  some  real  existence  and  this  real  existence 
represented  in  space-conception  is  what  may  be  called 
objective  space. 

Objective  space  is  the  form  of  reality.  Space  as 
atsight  is  the  form  of  sensibility.  Space  as  space-con- 
ception is  a  construct  of  an  abstract  nature  and  serves 
as  a  description  or  plan  of  the  form  of  reality. 

The  same  is  true  of  Time.  Time  as  atsight  is  the 
relation  of  succession  obtaining  in  the  changes  of  ex- 
perience. Time  as  time  conception  is  the  noumenon 
constructed  out  of  these  data  to  describe  and  deter- 
mine the  succession  of  events,  that  feature  of  reality 
which  may  be  called  objective  time. 

Briefly  :  Space  and  Time  are  not  things,  not  es- 
sences, not  entities,  but  certain  features  of  existence. 
They  are  the  forms  of  reality.  When  existence  finds 
a  representation  in  the  feelings  of  a  sentient  being. 


I 


THE  author's   reply.  83 

time  and  space  appear  as  their  forms,  and  these  forms 
furnish  the  material  out  of  which  are  built  the  concep- 
tions of  Space  and  Time. 

* 
*  * 

It  appears  tliat  Mr.  Spencer  for  some  strange  rea- 
sons, which  seem  to  be  based  upon  mere  preposses- 
sion, is  incapable  of  grasping  Kant's  meaning  and  the 
significance  oi  his  terms.  Not  minding  the  purport  of 
Kant's  investigation,  Mr.  Spencer  knows  nothing  of 
the  significance  of  the  contrast  made  in  the  Critique 
of  Pure  Reaso7i  between  Anschauung  (intuition  or 
"atsight,"  i.  e.,  the  direct  and  concrete  data  of  per- 
ception) and  Dcnkcn  (thought,  i.  e.,  the  abstractions 
and  generalisations  made  from  these  data),  and  he 
censured  Kant  in  the  first  edition  of  his  Principles  of 
Psychology  for  calling  Space  and  Time  "forms  of 
thought  "  and  attributing  them  to  the  ego.  Kantians 
called  Mr.  Spencer's  attention  to  the  fact  that  Space 
and  Time  according  to  Kant  are  "forms  of  intuition" 
not  "  form:  of  thou:'ht,"  and  so  Mr.  Spencer  proceeds 
to  replace  in  the  second  edition  the  term  "forms  of 
thought"  by  "forms  of  intuition,"  but  he  claims  that 
some  Kantians  have  u::e;:  th'.  phrase  "forms  of 
thought"  and  adds  that  "relatively  to  the  question  at 
issue,  whether  Time  and  Space  belong  to  the  ego  or 
the  non-ego,  the  distinction  is  wholly  unimportant,  and 
indeed  irrelevant." 

Here  are  Mr.  Spencer's  own  words : 

"Throughout  this  discussion  I  use  the  expression  "forms  of 
intuition,"  and  avoid  the  expression  "forms  of  thou^jht,"  which  I 
used  in  the  first  edition  of  this  work ;  and  for  using  which  I  have, 
along  with  other  writers,  been  blamed.  In  the  course  of  a  contro- 
versy carried  on  in  A'alure,  from  January  3  to  February  loth, 
1870,  it  was  pointed  out  by  Mr.   Lewes,   who  was  one  of  those 


§4  THE  author's  reply. 

charged  with  this  misrepresentation,  that  among  others  who  have 
used  the  phrase  "forms  of  thought"  to  express  this  doctrine  of 
Kant,  are  sundry  professed  Kantists,  as  Dr.  Whewell  and  Sir  W. 
Hamilton  (a  great  stickler  for  precision) ;  and  he  might  have  added 
to  these.  Dr.  Mansel,  who  is  also  an  exact  writer,  not  likely  to  have 
misapprehended  or  misstated  his  master's  meaning  The  fact  is 
that,  relatively  to  the  question  at  issue,  whether  Time  and  Space 
belong  to  the  ego  or  to  the  7ion-ego,  the  distinction  is  wholly  un- 
important, and  indeed  irrelevant.  If  some  one  were  to  quote  the 
statement  of  a  certain  chemist,  to  the  effect  that  broadcloth  is  a 
nitrogenous  substance  ;  and  if  another  were  to  contradict  him,  say- 
ing—no, his  statement  is  that  wool  is  a  nitrogenous  substance  ;  the 
objection  would,  I  think,  be  held  frivolous,  when  the  question  in 
dispute  was  whether  the  matter  of  wool  contains  nitrogen  or  not. 
And  I  do  not  see  much  more  pertinence  in  the  objection  that  Kant 
called  Time  and  Space  "forms  of  intuition"  (raw  material  of 
thought),  and  not  "forms  of  thought"  itself  (in  which  the  raw 
material  is  woven  together) ;  when  the  thing  contended  is,  that 
Time  and  Space  belong  neither  to  woven  thought  nor  to  its  un- 
woven materials." 

Mr.  Spencer  apparently  believes  that  according  to 
Kant,  Space  and  Time  have  no  application  in  the 
world  of  objects  (i.  e.,  the  no7i-egd).'^ 

*  Kant  never  said  that  Space  and  Time  belonged  to  the  ego  and  not  to  the 
non-ego,  he  claims  that  they  are  ideal,  they  are  forms  of  Anschauung.  Kant's 
mode  of  reasoning  indeed  suggests  the  idea  that  he  would  attribute  them  to 
the  ego  and  preclude  them  from  the  non-ego.     But  when  criticising  an  author,  - 

we  ought  to  use  his  expressions  and  condemn  his  mistakes  in  his  own  words.         ■ 
Mr.  Spencer  has  no  right  to  substitute  his  own  language  for  Kant's.  It  is  like  " 

pronouncing  a  verdict  without  allowing  the  defendant  to  plead  his  case,  but 
to  have  it  pleaded  by  the  state's  attorney,  who  like  the  judge  represents  the 
prosecuting  party.  I  do  not  agree  with  Kant's  conception  of  Time  and  Space, 
but  I  claim  that  his  views  if  stated  in  his  own  language  are  not  so  senseless 
and  idiotic  as  they  appear  in  Mr.  Spencer's  recapitulation  dressed  up  by  Mr 
Spencer  for  the  special  purpose  of  overthrowing  them.  Kant  says  for  instance 
in  §  3  under  the  caption  Schliisse  second  Paragraph  :  "  Der  Raum  ist  nichts 
anderes  als  nur  die  Form  aller  Erscheinungen  ausserer  Sinne,"  and  further 
down:  Unsere  Erorterungen  lehren  demnach  die  Realitat  (d.  i.  objective  Gil- 
tigkeit)  des  Raumes  in  Ansehung  alles  dessen,  was  ausserlich  als  Gegenstand 
uns  vorkommen  kann,  aber  zugleich  die  Idealitat  des  Raumes  in  Ansehung 
der  Dinge,  wenn  sie  durch  die  Vernunft  an  sich  selbst  erwogen  werden,  d.  i. 
ohne  Riicksicht  av.f  die  Beschaffenheit  unserer  Sinnlichkeit  zu  nehmen.  Wir 
behaupten  also  die  enipirische  Realitat  des  Raumes  (in  Ansehung  allermog- 


THE  author's  reply.  85 

Professor  Sylvester  one  of  r^Ir.  Spencer's  critics 
said  of  Mr.  Spencer's  misinterpretation  of  Kant  : 

"  It  is  clear  that  if  Mr.  Spencer  had  been  made  aware  of  the 
broad  line  of  demarcation  in  Kant's  system  between  Intuition,  the 
action  or  the  product  of  the  Sensibility,  and  Thought,  the  action 
or  product  of  the  Understanding  (the  two  belonging,  according  to 
Kant,  to  entirely  different  provinces  of  the  mind),  he  would  have 
seen  that  his  supposed  refutation  proceeded  on  a  mere  misappre- 
hension of  Kant's  actual  utterance  and  doctrine  on  the  subject.  If 
Mr.  Spencer  will  restore  to  Kant  the  words  really  used  by  him,  the 
sentence  will  run  thus  : — '  If  space  and  time  are  forms  of  intuition, 
they  can  never  be  thought  of;  since  it  is  impossible  for  anything 
to  be  at  once  the/oj-m  of  thought  and  the  ynatteroi  thought ;'  and 
his  epigram  (for  Mr.  Spencer  must  have  meant  it  rather  as  an  ep- 
igram than  as  a  serious  argument)  loses  all  its  point.  Was  it  h 
frio7-i  that  Kant  {the  Kant)  should  have  laid  himself  open  to  such 
a  scholar's  mate  at  the  very  outset  of  his  system  ?  " 

How  little  Mr.  Spencer  is  capable  of  catching  the 
sense  of  either  Kant  or  Professor  Sylvester's  criticism 
appears  from  the  reply  which  he  makes.     He  says : 

"I  have  only  to  remark  that  Professor  Sylvester's  mode  of 
rendering  my  criticism  pointless,  is  a  very  curious,  but  not,  I  think, 
a  very  conclusive  one.  He  has  substituted  Kant's  words  for  my 
words  in  one  part  of  the  sentence  quoted  (from  First  Frincif'h'S, 
p.  49),  while  he  has  made  no  corresponding  substitutions  in  the 
correlative  parts  of  the  sentence.  Had  he  put  'intuition'  for 
'thought'  everywhere,  instead  of  only  in  one  place,  my  sentence 
would  have  run  thus  :  'If  space  and  time  are  forms  of  intuition 
they  can  never  be  intuited  ;  since  it  is  impossible  for  anything  to 
be  at  once  ihe/orm  of  intuition  and  the  matter  of  intuition.'" 

Why  should  space  and  time,  if  they  are  forms  of 
intuition  (i.  e.,  Kant's  Afischauung),  never  be  intuited, 
i.  e. ,  be  immediately  perceived  as  atsights,  as  directly 

lichen  ausseren  Erfahrung)."  This  does  not  sound  so  ridiculous  as  Mr, 
Spencer  would  make  us  believe.  Kant  obviously  does  not  deny  the  objective 
validity  of  Space  and  Time,  and  most  emphatically  extends  its  validity  to  the 
non-tgo  (i.  e.,  the  objective  world). 


86  THE  author's  reply. 

given  data  of  our  perception?*  In  fact  Kant  main- 
tains that  they  are  and  I  do  not  know  of  any  sane  man 
who  would  deny  the  statement  if  he  understands  it. 
Space  and  Time  are  the  forms  of  our  sensibility,  which 
implies  that  they  belong  :o  concrete  phenomena,  not 
to  the  domain  of  abstractions.  It  is  true  that  a  thing 
can  not  be  at  the  same  time  form  and  matter,  and  so 
Space  and  Time  can  not  be  at  the  same  time  iheform 
of  intuition  and  waiter  of  intuition.  But  both  matter 
and  form  can  be  perceived  or  intuited  at  the  same  time. 
The  alteration  which  Mr.  Spencer  deems  just,  if 
Professor  Sylvester's  change  in  one  case  be  allowed, 
would  not  save  Mr.  Spencer's  position  but  only  renders 
his  mistake  more  obvious.  His  criticism  is  as  mean- 
ingless as  before,  but  Mr.  Spencer  finds  not  much  dif- 
ference between  either  renderings,  except  that  he  has 
now  brought  out  the  point  more  clearly.     He  adds : 

"  I  fail  to  see  that  in  the  sentence  as  thus  altered  the  point  is 
lost  :  if  it  was  there  before,  it  is  there  now.  Indeed,  as  I  think  the 
text  shows,  the  change  of  expression  which  Professor  Sylvester's 
objection  has  led  me  to  make,  renders  the  disproof  much  clearer 
than  it  was  before." 

What  can  we  expect  of  a  philosopher  who  is  so 
persistent  in  perverting  the  meaning  of  terms  !  f 

*  Mr.  Spencer  seems  to  understand  "  forms  of  intuition  "  in  the  sense  of 
"organs  of  intuition,"  and  believes  that  as  the  eye  cannot  see  itself,  so  the 
forms  of  intuition  cannot  be  intuited  ;  but  that  is  a  perversion  of  the  meaning 
of  the  term.  "To  be  intuited  "  is  equivalent  to  the  German  angeschaut  wer- 
den,  and  I  fail  to  understand  Mr.  Spencer's  logic  why  when  beholding  mate- 
rial objects  we  should  be  unable  to  behold  their  forms. 

t  Mr.  Spencer  claims  in  his  letter,  published  on  page  loi  of  this  book  that 
his  "  use  of  the  expression  forms  of  thought  instead  of  forms  of  intuition  was 
simply  an  inadvertence."  We  learn  from  the  passages  quoted  above  that  Mr- 
Spencer  felt  urged  by  his  critics  to  substitute  the  latter  term  for  the  former 
one,  and  that  it  was,  indeed,  a  mere  inadvertence  on  his  part  to  use  the  term 
again;  but  his  claim  that  the  change  is  indifferent  alone  proves  how  little 
Spencer  understood  the  meaning  of  his  critics.    The  fact  remains  that  Mr. 


THK  author's  REPLV.  87 

I  shall  now  take  up  the  details  of  Mr.  Spencer's 
reply. 

I. 

I  am  sorry  to  see  that  Mr.  Spencer,  instead  of 
frankly  acknowledging  his  errors,  has  taken  refuge  in 
discrediting  the  translations,  which  might  very  easily 
have  been  examined  either  by  himself  or  by  friends  of 
his  ;  especially  as  the  German  original  of  the  most  im- 
portant passages,  wherever  any  doubt  might  arise, 
and  also  of  those  expressions  on  the  misconception  of 
which  Mr.  Spencer  bases  his  unfavorable  opinion  of 
Kant,  was  added  in  foot-notes. 

II. 

But  Mr.  Spencer  adduces,  as  if  it  were  a  fact,  an 
instance  of  my  grave  mistakes.  He  says  that  I  failed 
to  distinguish  between  "consciousness"  and  "con- 
scientiousness." Mr.  Spencer  is  obviously  mistaken  ; 
but  even  if  it  were  as  he  assumes,  we  are  astonished 
how  much  he  makes  of  a  small  matter,  which  if  as 
alleged,  should  be  considered  as  a  mere  misprint. 

Mr,  Spencer's  statement  is  so  positive  that  it  must 
make  on  any  reader  the  impression  of  being  indubi- 
tably true.  However,  in  the  whole  first  article  of  mine, 
and  indeed  in  both  articles,  "conscientiousness"  is 
nowhere  mentioned  and  it  would  be  wrong  to  replace 
the  word  "consciousness"  in  any  of  the  passages  in 
which  it  occurs  by  "conscientiousness." 

I  should  be  glad  if  Mr.  Spencer  would  kindly  point 
out  to  me  the  passage  which  he  had  in  mind  when 
making  his  statement,  for  since  there  is  not  even  so 
much  as  an  occasion  for  confounding  consciousness 

Spencer  does  not  criticise  Kant  (with  whose  philosophy  he  is  utterly  unfamil- 
iar) but  a  straw  man  built  of  his  own  misconceptions  of  Kant's  philosophy. 


88  THE  author's  reply, 

and  conscientiousness,  I  stand  here  before  a  psycho- 
logical problem.  Mr.  Spencer's  statement  is  a  perfect 
riddle  to  me.  Either  I  have  a  negative  hallucination, 
as  psychologists  call  it,  so  that  I  do  not  see  what  is 
really  there,  or  Mr.  Spencer  must  have  had  a  positive 
hallucination.  That  which  Mr.  Spencer  has  read  into 
my  article,  was  never  written  and  it  is  not  there.  The 
alleged  fact  to  which  he  refers,  does  not  exist. 

This  kind  of  erroneous  reference  into  which  Mr. 
Spencer  has  inadvertently  fallen  is  a  very  grievous 
mistake.  It  appears  more  serious  than  a  simple  slip 
of  the  pen,  when  we  consider  that  Mr.  Spencer  uses 
the  statement  for  the  purpose  of  incrimination.  He 
justifies  upon  this  exceedingly  slender  basis  his  doubt 
concerning  the  correctness  of  the  translations  of  the 
quoted  passages,  and  Mr.  Spencer's  doubt  concerning 
the  correctness  of  these  translations  is  his  main  argu- 
ment for  rejecting  my  criticisms  in  toto. 

It  is  not  impossible,  indeed  it  is  probable,  that  Mr. 
Spencer  meant  "conscience"  instead  of  "conscien- 
tiousness." We  have  become  accustomed  to  worse 
cases  of  inadvertence  in  his  criticism  and  censures. 
There  is  one  passage  in  which  a  superficial  reader 
might  have  expected  "conscience"  in  place  of  "con- 
sciousness." However  that  does  not  occur  in  any 
of  the  translations,  but  in  a  paragraph  where  I  speak 
on  my  own  account.  This  passage  appears  on  page  25, 
line  14,  and  in  the  following  sentences.  Whatever 
anybody  might  have  expected  in  that  passa°:e,  I  cer- 
tainly intended  to  say  "consciousness,"  am  -^nly  a 
hasty  reader,  only  he  who  might  merely  read  tne  first 
line  of  the  paragraph,  would  consider  the  word  "con- 
sciousness" a  mistake. 

To  avoid  any  equivocation,  however,  even  to  hasty 


THE  author's  reply.  89 

readers,  and  to  guard  against  a  misconstruction  such 
as  Mr.  Spencer  possibly  has  given  to  the  sentence,  I 
would  be  willing  to  alter  the  passage  by  adding  a  few 
words  as  follows  : 

"It  is  quite  true  that  not  only  conscience,  but  every  state  of 
consciousness  is  a  feeling,"  etc.* 

The  italicised  words  are  inserted,  simply  to  show 
that  here  I  mean  "consciousness,"  wf/  conscience  and 
not  conscientiousness.  For  the  rest,  they  do  not  alter 
in  the  least  the  sense  of  the  sentence.  In  this  passage 
as  throughout  the  whole  article  the  terms  "  conscious- 
ness," and  "  conscience"  have  been  used  properly. 

* 

*  * 

Observing  that  Mr.  Spencer  himself  appears  to 
have  committed  the  mistake  for  which  he  erroneously 
blames  me,  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  he  "failed  to 
distinguish  between "  conscientiousness  and  con- 
science. I  should  rather  regard  it  as  trifling  on  my 
part  if  I  drew  this  inference  from  what  is  either  a  slip 
of  the  pen  or  an  oversight  in  proof-reading.  But  it 
strikes  me  that  that  knavish  rogue  among  the  fairies 
whom  Shakespeare  calls  Puck  and  scientists  define  as 
chance  or  coincidence  played  in  a  fit  of  anger  and  per- 
haps from  a  sentiment  of  pardonable  irony  a  humorous 
trick  upon  Mr.  Spencer.  The  moral  of  it  is  that  when 
an  author  censures  his  fellow  authors  with  undue 
severity  for  things  that  might  be  mere  misprints,  he 
should  keep  a  close  eye  on  his  own  printer's  devil. 

HI. 

Mr.  Spencer  discredits  my  knowledge  of  Kant.  He 
says  of  me  : 

siWe  have  not  altered  the  passage  in  tlie  present  reprint,  which  remains 
^s  Mr.  Spencer  read  it. 


90  THE  author's  reply. 

'One  maybe  excused  for  thinking  that  possibly  Dr.  Carus 
has  read  into  some  of  Kant's  exprsssions,  meanings  which  they  do 
not  rightly  bear." 

I  did  not  give  Mr.  Spencer  any  occasion  for  mak- 
ing this  personal  reflexion.  I  do  not  boast  of  any 
extraordinary  familiarity  with  Kant's  writings.  There 
are  innumerable  German  and  also  English  and  Amer- 
ican scholars  and  philosophers  who  know  Kant  almost 
by  heart.  But  the  question  at  issue  is  not  what  I 
conceive  Kant's  ideas  to  be,  but  what  Kant  has  really 
said,  and  I  was  very  careful  to  let  Kant  speak  for  him- 
self. 

My  criticism  of  Mr.  Spencer's  conception  of  Kant 
consisted  almost  exclusively  in  collating  and  contrast- 
ing Mr.  Spencer's  views  of  Kant  with  quotations  from 
Kant's  works.  How  can  I  read  anything  into  some 
of  Kant's  expressions,  if  I  present  translations  of  the 
expressions  themselves,  adding  thereto  in  foot-notes 
the  original  whenever  doubts  could  arise?  And  the 
general  drift  of  the  quotations  alone  suffices  to  over- 
throw Mr.  Spencer's  conception  of  Kant. 

The  truth  is  that  Mr.  Spencer  himself  committed 
the  mistake,  for  which  he  censures  me  unjustly. 
**  Mr.  Spencer  has  read  into  some  of  Kant's  expres- 
sions meanings  which  they  do  not  rightly  bear." 

IV. 

But  Mr.  Spencer  adduces  a  fact,  which,  if  it  were 
as  Mr.  Spencer  represents  it,  would  show  an  inability 
on  my  part  of  making  important  distinctions.  He 
says  of  me  : 

"He  blames  the  English  for  mistranslating  Kant,  since  they 
have  said  'Kant  maintained  that  Space  and  Time  are  intuitions,' 
which  is  quite  untrue,  for  they  have  everywhere  described  him  as 
maintaining  that  Space  and  Time  are  forms  of  intuitions." 


I 


THE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY.  QI 

This  is  a  double  mistake  :  (i)  Kant  and  his  trans- 
lators did  not  make  the  distinction  of  which  Mr. 
Spencer  speaks,  and  (2)  the  quotation  Mr.  Spencer 
makes  from  my  article  is  represented  to  mean  some- 
thing different  from  what  it  actually  means  in  the  con- 
text. 

Before  I  speak  for  myself  as  to  what  I  actually 
said,  let  us  state  the  facts  concerning  Kant's  usage  of 
the  terms  "intuitions"  and  "forms  of  intuition." 

Kant  defines  in  §  i  of  his  "Critique  of  Pure  Rea- 
son" what  he  understands  by  "Transcendental 
^Esthetic. "  He  distinguishes  between  "empirical  in- 
tuition "  {evipirische  Anschauung)  und  "pure  intuition" 
(reine  Afisc/iauung).      He  says  : 

"  That  sort  of  intuition  which  relates  to  an  object  by  means  of 
sensation,  is  called  an  empirical  intuition." 

Representations  contain  besides  that  which  be- 
longs to  sensation  some  other  elements.      Kant  says  : 

"  That  which  effects  that  the  content  of  the  phenomenon  can 
be  arranged  under  certain  relations,  I  call  lis/orms." 

lAnd  later  on  he  continues  : 

"This  pure  form  of  sensibility  I  shall  call  pure  intuition." 

These  are  Kant's  phrases  in  J.  M.  D.  Meiklejohn's 
well  known  translation.  The  term  "  pure  intuition  " 
is  repeated  again  and  again,  and  we  find  frequently 
added  by  way  of  explanation  the  phrases  "as  a  mere 
form  of  sensibility,"  "the  mere  form  of  phenomena," 
"forms  of  sensuous  intuition,"  and  also  (as  Mr. 
Spencer  emphasises  as  the  only  correct  way)  "forms 
of  intuition." 

Kant  sa}s  : 

i)  "  Di'ese  reive  Form  der  Sinnlichkiit  uird  tiuih  setber 
reine  Anschauung  heisscn.     g  i. 


g2  THE  author's  reply. 

2)  "  Zweitens  uuerdeti  zvir  von  diescr  (der  emfirisclicn  An- 
schaming)  noch  alles  abtrennen,  damit  7iichts  als  reine  Ajischau- 
ung  2ind  die  blosse  Form  der  Erscheinungen  iibrig  bleibe.     §  i. 

3)  "  Raum  ....  muss  urs;prunglich  Ayischauung  scin.  §  3. 

4)  "  Der  Raum  ist  nichts  anderes  als  nur  die  Form  aller 
Erscheinu7igen  ausserer  Sinjie.     §  3. 

5)  "Der  Raum  aber  betrifft  nur  die  reine  Form  der  An- 
schauung.  (This  passage  appears  in  the  first  edition  only,  the 
paragraph  containing  it  is  omitted  in  the  second  edition.     §  3. 

6)  ' '  Die  Zeit  ist  ....  eine  reine  Form,  der  sijinlichen  An 
schauuyjg .  ...     §  4. 

7)  "  Es  muss  ihr  *  u)imittelbare  Anschauung  zum  Grunde 
lie  gen.     §  4. 

8)  ' '  Die  Zeit  ist  nichts  anderes  als  die  Form  des  huieren 
Siiines.     §  6. 

9)  "  .  .  .  .  dass  die  Vorstellung  der  Zeit  selbst  Anschauujig 
sei.     §6. 

10)  "  IVir  haben  nun  ....  reine  Anschauung  a  friori, 
Raum  2ind  Zeit.  §  10.  Beschluss  der  transce7ide?italeti  ^s- 
thetiky 

These  quotations  do  not  pretend  to  be  exhaustive, 
nor  is  that  necessary  for  the  present  purpose. 

Kant,  as  we  learn  from  these  quotations,  makes 
no  distinction  between  rehie  Anschauung  and  Form  der 
Anschauung.  He  uses  most  frequently  the  term  reine 
Anschauung  and  designates  in  several  places  Space  and 
Time  simply  as  Anschauung.  (See  the  quotations  3, 
7,  and  g.)  So  far  as  I  can  gather  from  a  renewed 
perusal,  the  expression  proposed  by  Mr.  Spencer, 
"form  of  intuition,"  Fortn  der  Anschauung,  occurs 
only  once  and  that  too  in  a  passage  omitted  in  the 
second  edition. 

It  is  almost  redundant  to  add  that  the  English 
translators  and  interpreters  of  Kant  follow  the  original 
pretty  closely.     Accordingly  it   is  actually  incorrect 

♦Second  edition  roads  " /7;«r«  "  in  place  of  "  z7;^,"  viz.  der  Zeit.  The 
word  "  ihnen  "  refers  to  1  hcilvorsteUiingcn  der  Zeit. 


THE  AUIHOR  S  REPLY.  93 

"that  they  have  everywhere  (!)  described  Kant  as 
maintaining  that  Space  and  Time  are  forms  of  intui- 
tion." In  addition  to  the  quotations  from  Meiklejohn, 
I  call  Mr.  Spencer's  attention  to  William  Flemming's 
"Vocabulary  of  Philosophy"  (4th  ed.,  edited  by 
Henry  Calderwood)  which  reads  sub  voce  "  Intuition," 
p.  228  with  reference  to  Kant's  view  : 

"  Space  and  time  are  intuilions  of  sense." 

To  say  "Time  and  Space  are  forms  of  intuition" 
is  quite  correct  according  to  Kantian  terminology. 
No  objection  can  be  made  to  Mr.  Spencer  on  that 
ground.  But  to  say  "Time  and  Space  are  intuitions" 
is  also  quite  correct,  and  Mr.  Spencer  is  wrong  in  cen- 
suring the  expression. 

Why  does  Mr.  Spencer  rebuke  me  so  severely  on  a 
point  which  is  of  no  consequence?  He  appears  con- 
fident that  I  have  betrayed  an  unpardonable  miscon- 
ception of  Kant's  philosophy.  But  the  obstinacy  with 
which  he  sticks  to  that  expression  alone  which  his 
critics  taught  liim,  is  only  fresh  evidence  of  both  his 
confusion  of  mind  and  unfamiliarity  with  the  subject. 

*  * 

Having  pointed  out  by  quotations  from  Kant  that 
the  expression  "space  is  Anschauu7}g''  is  as  legiti- 
mately Kantian  as  the  other  phrase  that  it  is  "a  form 
oi  Anschauung,'"  I  shall  now  proceed  to  explain  why 
the  quotation  which  Mr.  Spencer  makes  from  my  ar- 
ticle, although  the  eight  words  in  quotation  marks  are 
literally  quoted,  is  a  misquotation.  It  is  torn  out  of 
its  context. 

I  did  not  blame  the  English  translators  of  Kant  at 
all,  but  I  blamed  his  interpreters,  among  whom  the 
English  interpreters  (not  all  English  interpreters,  but 
certainly  some  of  them)  are  the  worst,  for  "mutilat- 


94 


THE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY. 


ing  Kant's  best  thoughts,  so  that  this  hero  of  progress 
appears  as  a  stronghold  of  antiquated  views"  ;  and  as 
an  instance  I  called  attention  to  the  misconception  of 
Kant's  term  Anschauung,  saying  : 

"  How  different  is  Kant's  philosophy,  for  instance,  if  his  posi- 
tion with  reference  to  time  and  space  is  mistaken  !  "  '  Time  and 
Space  are  our  Ayischauung  '  Kant  says.  But  his  English  trans- 
lators declare  '  Kant  maintained  that  space  and  time  are  intui- 
tions." What  a  difference  it  makes  if  intuition  is  interpreted  in 
the  sense  applied  to  it  by  the  English  intuitionalist  school  instead 
of  its  being  taken  in  the  original  meaning  of  the  word  Anschau- 
ung." 

The  word  "intuition"  which  is  used  by  English 
translators  is  not  wrong  in  itself;  but  it  is  hable  to  be 
misinterpreted. 

The  word  "intuition"  implies  something  myste- 
rious ;  the  word  Anschauung  denotes  that  which  is 
immediately  perceived,  simply,  as  it  were,  by  looking 
at  it.  So  especially  the  sense-perceptions  of  the 
things  before  us  are  Anschauungen.  There  is  absolutely 
nothing  mysterious  about  Anschauung. 

Mr.  Spencer,  believing  that  he  had  caught  me  in 
making  unawares  a  blunder,  tears  the  passage  out  of 
its  context,  ignores  its  purport,  makes  a  point  of  an 
antithesis  which  had  nothing  in  the  world  to  do  with 
the  topic  under  discussion,  only  to  throw  on  me  the 
opprobrium  of  incompetence.  Even  if  Mr.  Spencer's 
antithesis  of  "intuition"  and  "forms  of  intuition" 
were  of  any  consequence  (as,  unfortunately  for  Mr. 
Spencer,  it  is  not),  it  would  count  for  nothing  against 
me  because  I  did  not  speak  of  ' '  forms  ' '  in  the  passage 
referred  to,  I  simply  alluded  to  one  misinterpretation 
of  the  term  Anschauung  which  is  quite  common  among 
English  Kantians.    It  was  not  required  by  the  purpose 


THE  author's  reply.  95 

I  had  in  vi«w,  to  enter  into  any  details  as  to  what  kind 
of  Anschauung  I  meant,  and  an  allusion  to  "form"  or 
to  any  other  subject  would  have  served  only  to  con- 
found the  idea  which  I  intended  to  set  forth  in  the 
paragraph  from  which  Mr.  Spencer  quotes. 

Misquotation  of  this  kind,  into  which  Mr.  Spencer 
was  inveigled  by  a  hasty  reading,  should  be  avoided 
with  utmost  care,  for  it  involves  an  insinuation.  It 
leads  away  from  the  main  point  under  discussion  to 
side  issues,  and  it  misrepresents  the  author  from  whom 
the  quotation  is  made.  It  insinuates  a  meaning  which 
the  passage  does  not  bear  and  which  was  not  even 
thought  of  in  the  context  out  of  which  it  is  torn. 

Mr.  Spencer  quotes  the  passage  as  if  I  had  pre- 
ferred the  term  "intuition"  to  the  term  "form  of  in- 
tuition," or  at  least,  as  if  I  had  no  idea  that  Kant  con- 
ceives Time  and  Space  as  "forms."  Yet  Mr.  Spencer 
in  trying  to  make  out  a  point  against  me  betrays  hig 
own  lack  of  information.  Kant  insisted  most  emphat- 
ically on  calling  the  forms  of  our  sensibility  (i.  e.  space 
and  time)  '^  Anschauu?igen.'^ 

But  Mr.  Spencer's  case  is  worse  still.  While  he 
insists  upon  the  statement  that  according  to  the  trans- 
lators of  Kant  space  and  time  are  "forms  of  intui- 
tion," which  is  at  least  correct,  he  uses  twice  in  the 
very  same  paragraph  the  expression  that  according  to 
Kant  "space  and  time  are  forms  of  thought,"  which 
is  incorrect.  The  forms  of  thought  according  to 
Kantian  terminology  are  not  space  and  time  but  the 
domain  of  the  transcendental  logic.  Any  one  who 
confounds  the  two  terms  "forms  of  intuition"  and 
"forms  of  thought"  proves  himself  unable  to  form  a 
correct  opinion  on  Kant's  philosophy.  That  is  just 
characteristic  of  Kant  that  he  regards  time  and  space 


96  THE  author's  reply. 

not  as  thought,  nor  as  forms  of  thought,  but  as  An- 
schauungen  and  in  contradistinction  to  sense-intuitions 
(i.  e.  sensations)  he  calls  them  reine  Anschauungen  or 
Formen  der  Anschauung.* 

V. 

Mr.  Spencer  commenting  upon  his  criticism  of 
Kant's  idea  of  a  Good  Will,  says  : 

• '  I  find  that  in  the  above  three  paragraphs  I  have  done  Kant 
less  than  justice  and  more  than  justice — less,  in  assuming  that  his 
evolutionary  view  was  limited  to  the  genesis  of  our  sidereal  system, 
and  more,  in  assuming  that  he  had  not  contradicted  himself. 

"Clearly,  I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  Carus  for  enabling  me  to 
prove  that  Kant's  defence  of  his  theory  of  '  a  good  will '  is,  by  his 
own  showing,  baseless. " 

Kant's  idea  of  a  good  will  has  nothing  to  do  with 
evolution,  and  we  can  abstain  here  from  discussing 
whether  or  not  Kant  was  an  evolutionist.  Whether 
evolution  is  true  or  not,  what  difference  does  it  make 
to  the  proposition,  that  a  good  will  is  the  only  thing 
which  can  be  called  good  without  further  qualification 
{ohne  Einschrdnkung~)  ?  Pleasure  is  good,  but  is  not 
absolutely  good,  there  are  cases  in  which  pleasure  is  a 
very  bad  thing.  We  must  qualify  our  statement  and 
limit  it  to  special  cases.  A  good  will,  however,  says 
Kant,  is  in  itself  good  under  all  circumstances. 

Mr.  Spencer's  arguments  and  the  logical  syllogisms 
which  are  peculiarly  his  own,  are  a  severe  tax  on  the 
patience  of  the  most  charitable  reader. 

Did  Mr.  Spencer  prove  the  baselessness  of  Kant's 
proposition  by  proving  evolution?  Is  it  inconsistent 
to  believe  in  evolution  and  at  the  same  time  to  regard 

♦  This  is  the  only  point  which  Mr.  Spencer  answers  in  his  letter,  on  page 
loi,  admitting  the  mistake  and  saying  that  it  "  was  simply  an  inadvertence.'. 
But  it  is  an  inadvertence  with  aggravating  circumstances,  furnishing  an  ad- 
ditional evidence  of  the  tact  that  Mr.  Spencer  talks  at  random. 


THE  author's  reply.  97 

a  good  will  as  absolutely  good,  as  good  without  re- 
serve or  limitation?     I  think  not! 

VI. 

Mr.  Spencer  in  admitting  that  "the  general  drift 
of  the  passages  quoted  makes  it  tolerably  clear  that 
Kant  must  have  believed  in  the  operation  of  natural 
causes  ....  in  producing  organic  forms,"  adds: 

"  He  does  not,  however,  extend  the  theory  of  natural  genesis 
to  exclusion  of  the  theory  of  supernatural  genesis." 

How  does  Mr.  Spencer  prove  his  statement?  Does 
he  quote  a  passage  from  Kant  which  expresses  his  be- 
lief in  supernaturalism  ?  No,  Mr.  Spencer  does  not 
quote  Kant,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  passage 
to  suit  that  purpose.  Mr.  Spencer  adduces  a  few  un- 
meaning phrases  gleaned  at  random  and  torn  out  of 
their  context,  and  from  these  phrases  he  concludes 
that  Kant  believed  in  the  supernatural.  Kant  spoke 
somewhere  of  "the  wisdom  of  nature"  who  has  things 
so  arranged  that  the  species  might  be  preserved.  If 
the  wisdom  of  nature  in  preserving  the  species  is  to 
be  taken  literally,  the  phrase  might  prove  that  Kant 
believed  nature  to  be  a  wise  old  woman.  Kant  spoke 
further  of  "the  germ  of  reason  placed  in  man  where- 
by he  is  destined  to  social  intercourse."  Does  the 
usage  of  the  word  "  destined  "  really  "imply  divine 
intervention?"     Mr.  Spencer  adds: 

"And  this  [viz.  Kant's  usage  of  these  phrases]  shows  that  I 
was  justified  in  ascribing  to  him  the  belief  that  Space  and  Time,  as 
forms  of  thought  [sic!],  are  supernatural  endowments." 

What  might  we  not  prove  by  this  kind  of  loose 
argumentation  !  Mr.  Spencer  should  sweep  before  his 
own  door  ere  he  complains  of  Kant's  abnormal  reason- 
ing. 


g8  THE  author's  reply. 

Kant  did  not  introduce  any  supernatural  explana- 
tions ;  on  the  contrary,  he  proposed  to  exclude  "super- 
natural genesis."  He  says  e.  g.  in  a  passage  of  the 
"  Critique  of  Judgment  "  quoted  on  page  39  : 

"  If  we  assume  occasionalism  for  the  production  of  organised 
beings,  nature  is  thereby  wholly  discarded  ....  therefore  it  can- 
not be  supposed  that  this  system  is  accepted  by  any  one  who  has 
had  to  do  with  philosophy." 

And  furthermore  Kant  rejects  the  partial  admission 
of  the  supernatural,  saying  : 

"As  though  it  were  not  the  same  to  make  the  required  forms 
arise  in  a  supernatural  manner  at  the  beginning  of  the  world  as 
during  its  progress." 

Mr.  Spencer  charges  Kant  with  inconsistency.  We 
do  not  intend  to  say  that  Kant  was  in  all  the  phases 
of  his  development  consistent  with  himself.  But  we 
do  say  that  the  charge  of  Mr.  Spencer  against  Kant 
consists  in  this  :  the  real  Kant  had  said  things  which 
are  incompatible  with  Mr.  Spencer's  view  of  Kant. 

This  settles  the  sixth  point. 

VII. 

Mr.  Spencer's  reply  to  my  criticism  is  a  very  strange 
piece  of  controversy  and  I  have  actually  been  at  a  loss, 
how  to  account  for  it. 

The  situation  can  be  explained  only  by  assuming 
that  Mr.  Spencer,  being  an  impatient  reader,  when 
finding  out  that  he  disagreed  with  my  propositions, 
could  go  no  further  and  wrote  his  reply  to  me  without 
having  read  my  articles.  This  is  very  hard  on  a  critic 
who,  carefully  avoiding  everything  that  might  look 
like  fault-finding,  is  painstakingly  careful  in  giving  to 
the  author  criticised  every  means  of  investigating  the 
truth  himself  and  helps  him  in  a  friendly  way  to  cor- 
rect his  errors. 


THE  AUTHOR  S  REPLY.  QQ 

There  is  only  one  consolation  for  nie,  which  is, 
that  I  am  in  good  company.  The  great  thinker  of 
Koenigsberg  is  very  severely  censured  in  almost  all 
of  Mr.  Spencer's  writings  for  ideas  which  he  never 
held.  And  now  Mr.  Spencer  confesses  openly  and 
with  ingenuous  sincerity,  that  his  knowledge  of  Kant's 
writings  is  extremely  limited.  But  why  he  condemns 
a  man  of  whom  he  knows  so  little  Mr.  Spencer  does 
not  tell  us. 

Mr.  Spencer  says  : 

"My  knowledge  of  Kant's  writings  is  extremely  limited.  In 
1844  a  translation  of  his  'Critique  of  Pure  Reason'  (then  I  think 
lately  published)  fell  into  my  hands,  and  I  read  the  first  few  pages 
enunciating  his  doctrine  of  Time  and  Space  ;  my  peremptory  re- 
jection of  which  caused  me  to  lay  the  book  down. 

"Twice  since  then  the  same  thing  has  happened  ;  for,  being 
an  impatient  reader,  when  I  disagree  with  the  cardinal  propositions 
of  a  work  I  can  go  no  further. 

"  One  other  thing  I  knew.  By  indirect  references  I  was  made 
aware  that  Kant  had  propounded  the  idea  that  celestial  bodies  have 
been  formed  by  the  aggregation  of  diffused  matter.  Beyond  this 
my  knowledge  of  his  conceptions  did  not  extend  ;  and  my  supposi- 
tion that  his  evolutionary  conception  had  stopped  short  with  the 
genesis  of  sun,  stars,  and  planets  was  due  to  the  fact  that  his  doc- 
trine of  Time  and  Space,  as  forms  of  thought  [sic]  anteceding  ex- 
perience, implied  a  supernatural  origin  inconsistent  with  the  hy- 
pothesis of  natural  genesis." 

Kant  has  been  a  leader  in  thought  for  the  last  cen- 
tury. It  is  very  important  to  criticise  his  ideas  wher- 
ever they  are  wrong,  but  his  errors  cannot  be  conquered 
by  ex  cathedra  denunciations. 

Darwin's  habits  in  investigating  and  weighing  the 
pros  and  cons  of  a  question  were  very  different  from  Mr. 
Spencer's,  and  Darwin's  success  is  in  no  small  degree 
due  to  the  sternness  with  which  he  adhered  to  cer- 
tain rules  of  reading  and  studying.     We  find  in  his 


lOO  THE  author's  REPLY. 

"  Autobiography"  certain  reminiscences  labelled  "im- 
portant "  from  which  the  following  is  instructive  : 

"I  had  also,  during  many  years,  followed  a  golden  rule, 
namely,  that  whenever  a  published  fact,  a  new  observation  or  a 
thought,  came  across  me,  which  was  opposed  to  my  general  re- 
sults, to  make  a  memorandum  of  it  without  fail,  for  I  had  found 
by  experience  that  such  facts  and  thoughts  were  far  more  apt  to 
escape  from  the  memory  than  favorable  ones." 

Experience  teaches  that  we  can  learn  most  from 
those  authors  with  whom  we  do  not  agree.  The  ethics 
of  reading  and  studying  demand  other  habits  than  lay- 
ing a  book  down  when  we  disagree  with  its  cardinal 
propositions.   Such  habits  prevent  progress  and  create 

prejudices.  ^ 

*  * 

Mr.  Speecer  has  not  answered  my  criticism  at  all. 
Mr.  Spencer  did  not  even  take  into  consideration  the 
passages  quoted  from  Kant.  He  republished  all  the 
false  statements  of  Kant's  views,  so  inconsiderately 
made,  together  with  all  the  perverse  opinions  based 
upon  them.  The  assurance  with  which  Mr.  Spencer 
makes  statements  which  have  no  foundation  whatever 
is  really  perplexing  even  to  a  man  who  is  well  informed 
on  the  subject,  and  it  will  go  far  to  convince  the  un- 
wary reader.*  What,  however,  shall  become  of  the 
general  tenor  of  philosophical  criticism  and  contro- 
versy if  a  man  of  Mr.  Spencer's  reputation  is  so  in- 
different about  being  informed  concerning  the  exact 
views  of  his  adversary,  if  he  is  so  careless  in  presenting 
them,  if  he  makes  positively  erroneous  statements  on 
confessedly  mere  "supposition,"  and  finally,  if  in 
consequence  thereof  he  is  flagrantly  unjust  in  censur- 
ing errors  which  arise  only  from  his  own  too  prolific 
imagination  ? 

*The  late  Henry  George  called  Mr.  Spencer  "  the  perplexed  philosopher.' 


THE  author's  reply.  IOI 

We  feel  confident  that  Mr.  Spencer  will  explain 
his  side  of  the  question  satisfactorily.  His  mistakes 
being  undeniable,  we  do  not  believe  that  he  will  seek 
to  deny  them.  Yet  we  trust  that  Mr.  Spencer  as  soon 
as  he  finds  himself  at  fault,  will  not  even  make  an 
attempt  at  palliation,  that  he  will  not  blink  the  frank 
aknowledgment  of  his  misstatements  and  also  of  hav- 
ing treated  Kant  with  injustice.  A  man  who  has  de- 
voted his  life  to  the  search  for  truth  will  not  suffer 
any  blot  to  remain  on  his  escutcheon. 

[I  abstain  from  altering  the  last  paragraph  which  seems  now  out  of  date 
and  will  add  only  by  way  of  Postscript  my  regret  that  Mr.  Spencer  has  failed 
to  fulfil  my  expectations.  The  only  answer  he  ever  made  is  the  letter  which 
is  reproduced  as  the  end  of  this  discussion.  I  have  been  tardy  in  the  repub- 
lication of  these  criticisms,  perhaps  too  tardy,  but  I  still  hoped  that  Mr. 
Spencer  would  by  and  by  understand  the  situation  and  by  a  frank  confession 
of  his  mistakes  relieve  me  of  the  unpleasant  task  of  repeating  my  charges  and 
of  having  them  appear  in  book  form.  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  for 
the  sake  of  truth,  of  justice,  and  in  the  interest  of  the  growing  generation 
they  should  become  more  accessible  to  the  reading  public] 

A  LETTER  FROM  MR.   HERBERT  SPENCER. 

As  I  feel  it  a  duty  to  reserve,  for  other  purposes, 
the  very  small  power  of  work  now  left  to  me,  I  am 
obliged  to  decline  entering  upon  a  controversy.  I 
must  leave  readers  to  examine  for  themselves — little 
hoping,  however,  that  they  will  do  so. 

One  point  only  I  wish  to  note.  The  use  of  the  ex- 
pression "forms  of  thought,"  instead  of  "forms  of  in- 
tuition," was  simply  an  inadvertence;*  as  will  be  man- 
ifest on  observing  that  though  I  have  used  the  wrong 
expression  in  the  note,  I  have  used  the  right  expres- 
sion in  the  text  (p.  203),  as  also  throughout  my  crit- 
icism of  Kant's  doctrine  in  The  Principles  of  Psychology, 
Part  VII,  Chapter  IV,  "The  Reasonings  of  Meta- 
physicians," §  399.  Herbert  Spencer. 

•This  subject  is  discussed  on  pp.  83-86  and  95-96  of  the  present  booklet. 


INDEX. 


Abnormal"  reasoning,  Kant's,  13. 

Adler,  Prof.  Felix,  6. 

Aggressive,  not  defensive,  75. 

Agnosticism,  shallowness  of,  30;  Mr. 
Spencer's,  a  popularisation  of 
Kant's  view,  34;  Spencer's,  57;  like 
a  fog,  61 ;  arrogance  of,  69 ;  as  an 
attitude,  6g:  reactionary,  69  ;  tran- 
sitional, 6g. 

Aim  of  Providence,  50. 

Anschauung,  33,  75-80,  95 ;  Kant's 
term,  76;  Kant  designates  space 
and  time  as,  92 ;  and  intuition,  94. 

Archery,  ethics  compared  to,  21. 

Argumentation,  Spencer's  loose,  97. 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  81. 
Bestimmung  (Mission),  18,  50. 

Carus,  P.,g6;  referred  to  by  Spencer, 

72-74- 
Clifford,  Prof.  W.  K.,  52,  53- 
Comte,  August,  1. 
Condorcet,  48,  49,  51. 
Conscience,  66;  a  feeling,  25,  27;  of 

man,  5-6;  Mr.  Spencer  on,  7. 
Conscientiousness,  89. 
Consciousness,  25,  87,  89. 
Criticism,  81. 

Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  32. 
Cultivated  reason,  16,  22. 

Darvfin,  48;  his  golden  rule,  99,  100. 
Descartes,  8. 

Dilettantism  in  philosophy,  68. 
Du  Bois  Reymond,  53. 
Duty,  20;  and  pleasure,  ig;  sense  of, 
25. 

Ego,  according  to  Kant  a  logical  fic- 
tion, 8. 

Empirical  intuition,  91. 

Encyclopadia  Britannica,  on  Spen- 
cer's generalisation,  37. 


End  of  Will,  13,  14. 

Epigenesis,  38  et  seq. 

Ethics  compared  to  archery,  21;  ra 

duced  to  prudence,  Spencer's,  3i ; 

universal  principles  in,  30. 
Evolution, Kant's,  9-10;  Herder's  idea 

of,   11;    Kant's  conception   of,  21; 

Karl  von  Baer  on,  35  et  seq.;  in  the 

old  sense  as  unfolding,  38  et  seq.; 

and  good  will,  96. 
Existence,  triple  enigma  of,  53. 

Feeling  and  ideas,  discrimination 
between,  25. 

Feeling  creature,  man  a,  28. 

First  cause,  55,  56. 

Fog,  agnosticism  like  a,  61. 

Forms,  defined  by  Kant,  91 ;  of  intui- 
tions, 90,  91,  93. 

Generalisation,  24,  37. 
George,  Henry,  100. 
Goethe,  53,  54,  79;  on  intuition,  79. 
Good  will,  13,  14,  18,  22 ;  and  the  Good 
17  ;  and  evolution,  96. 

Haeckel,  Prof.  Ernst,  46. 

Happiness,  Herder  on,  18;  of  the 
greatest  number,  greatest,  20,  68 
quality  of,  21 ;  Spencer  on,  21 ;  pur 
suit  of,  22;  state  of  perfect,  50. 

Happy  sheep,  50. 

Harris,  Dr.  W.  T.,  77. 

Herder,  Johann  Gottfried,  10,  17,  50 
Kant's  objections  to,  11 ;  on  happi 
ness,  18. 

Heteronomy,  22. 

History,  natural,  defined  by  Kant,  9 

Idealism,  Kant's,  80,  Si. 
Ideas,  strata  of,  32. 
Impatient  reader,  98,  99. 
Inadvertence,  Spencer's,  86,  88. 
Inconsistency,  of  Kant.  98  ;  of  Spen 
cer's  philosophy,  63,  64. 


104 


INDEX. 


Individuals,  nature  abandons  to  total 

destruction  (Kant),  12. 
Infant's  cry  at  birth,  Kant  on,  44. 
Infinite,  67. 

Infinity  not  mysterious,  55. 
Instinct,  16. 
Intuition,  79,  80,  83  ;  six  meanings,  78 ; 

forms  of,  83,  90,  91,  93 ;  Spencer  on 

forms    of,   83,   84 ;     empirical,    91 ; 

pure,  91 ;  and  Anschauung,  94. 

Kant,  I,  2,  46;  his  objections  to  Her- 
der, II ;  his  abnormal  reasoning, 
13;  his  conception  of  time,  15;  on 
a  cultivated  reason,  15,  16;  on  hate 
of  reason,  16;  on  misology,  16:  his 
moral  maxim,  17;  his  reasoning,  24; 
his  conception  of  evolution,  31 ; 
his  reasoning  abnormal,  31 ;  ar- 
raigned by  Mr.  Spencer,  32;  too 
radical,  35;  did  not  recognise  sta. 
bility  of  species,  40  et  seq.;  on  the 
origin  of  man,  43;  on  infant's  cry 
at  birth,  44;  calls  man's  animal  na- 
ture quadrupedal,  45 ;  the  old,  46 
et  seq.;  Charles  S.  Peirce  on,  51; 
his  idealism,  80,  81 ;  his  conception 
of  the  objective  validity  of  space, 
84,  85  :  his  definition  of  forms,  91 ; 
designates  space  and  time  as  An- 
schauung,  92;  his  inconsistency,  98. 

Knowledge,  55  ;  eliminated  by  Spen- 
cer, 66;  is  relative,  61. 

Kroeger,  77. 

Mach,  Prof.  Ernst,  34. 

Man,  conscience  of,  5-6;  a  feeling 
creature,  28  ;  Kant  on  the  origin  of, 
43  ;  bis  animal  nature  quadrupedal, 
according  to  Kant,  45. 

Maxim,  Kant's  moral,  17. 

Mechanical  laws,  explanation  ac- 
cording 10,46;  nature  derived  ac- 
cording to,  41  et  seq. 

Meiklejohn,  77. 

Mission,  50;  of  the  human  race,  18; 
unceasing  progress  man's,  18. 

Misology,  Kant  on,  16. 

Moscati,  Dr.,  44. 

Motion,  59;  Spencer's  idea  of,  57,  58. 


Mysterious,    Spencer's    method    of 

making  ideas,  60. 
Mystery-isation  of  knowledge,  57. 
Mystery,  Spencer's  absolute,  64. 

Nature  derived  according  to  mechan- 
ical laws,  41  et  seq. 
Nescience,  56,  66. 
Non-existent.  61. 

Objective  validity  of  space,  accord- 
ing to  Kant,  84,  85. 

Occasionalism,  38  et  seq.,  39. 

Open  Court,  The,  2 ;  referred  to  by 
Spencer,  72. 

Paradise,  7. 

Peirce,  Charles    S.,  77,  78,  79;    on 

Kant,  51. 
Perplexed  Philosopher,  the,  100. 
Pleasure  and  duty,  19. 
Porter,  Dr.  Noah,  8,  14. 
Positivism,  56. 
Prestabilism,  38,  39. 
Progress,  unceasing,  50. 
Prototype  of  the  original  species,  9. 
Providence,  aim  of,  50. 
Pure  intuition,  91. 

Reactionary  agnosticism,  69. 

Reason,  cultivated,  t6,  22 ;  Kant  on  a 
cultivated,  15,  16;  Kant  on  hate  of, 
16. 

Reasoning,  Kant's,  24. 

Reconciliation  of  religion  and  sci- 
ence, 66;  Spencer's,  65. 

Religion  based  upon  the  known,  65. 

Religion  of  science,  67. 

Revue  Philosophique,  5. 

Russell,  F.  C,  80. 

Schiller,  27-29,  35. 

Schleiermacher,  on  good,  24. 

Schopenhauer,  47. 

Schultze,  Fritz,  48. 

Science,    natural,    contrasted    with 

natural  history,  g;  religion  of,  67. 
Sense,  logical,  26. 
Sense  of  duty,  25-27. 
Sentimentality,  27. 
Sentiment,  import  of,  28. 
Space  and  time  discussed,  81-83. 


k 


INDEX. 


105 


Space,  objectiva  validity  of  same, 
according  to  Kant,  84,  8}. 

Species,  Kant  traces  diSerent  varie. 
ties  back  to  one,  9-10  ;  stability  of 
not  recognised  by  Kant,  40  et  seq.; 
preservation  of,  44,  45. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  i ;  a  reactionary 
spirit,  2;  bis  dilettantism,  2;  on 
conscience,  7;  his  ethics  reduced 
to  prudence,  21  ;  on  happiness,  2: ; 
his  agnosticism  a  popularisation 
of  Kant's  view,  34  ;  Encyclopudia 
Britannica  on,  37;  his  philosoph- 
ical development,  48  ;  his  Utopian 
ideal.  50;  a  power  in  our  age,  52  \ 
coincides  with  the  Zeitgeist,  52; 
sympathy  with,  52;  his  agnosticism, 
57;  his  idea  of  motion,  57,  58;  his 
method  of  making  ideas  mysteri- 
ous, 60;  his  philosophy,  inconsis- 
tency of,  63,  64  ;  his  absolute  mys- 
tery, 64  ;  his  reconciliation  of  reli- 
gion and  science,  65 ;  eliminates 
knowledge,  66;  an  awakener  from 
traditionalism,  70;  his  comment, 
71,  et  seq.;  his  reference  to  The 
Open  Court,  72;  his  reference  to  P. 
Carus,  72-74;  on  forms  of  intuition, 
83,84,  Sylvester  on,  85;  his  inad- 
vertence, 86,  88 ;  his  main  argu- 
ment, 88;  his  loose  argumentation, 
97;  his  letter,  loi. 

Stellar  universe,  7. 

Strata  of  ideas,  32. 

Sublimity,  two  kinds  of,  3. 


Substance  of  the  mind,  67. 
Sylvester,  Professor,  86;  on  Spencer 

85- 
Sympathy  with  Spencer,  52. 

Thing  in  itself  superfluous,  34, 
Things  in  themselves  are  ghosts,  60 
Three  assumptions,  54. 
Time  and  space,  33;  discussed,  81-83. 
Time,  Kant's  conception  of,  15. 
Transitional  agnosticisip,  69. 
Triple  enigma  of  existence,  53. 

Ueberweg,  63,  64. 

Unceasing  progress,  50;  is  essential. 

21;  man's  mission,  18. 
Unknowable,    the,    6i  ;     had     better 

be  discarded,  62;    convenient  for 

sleight  of  hand,  64. 
Utilitarianism,  19. 

Von  Baer,  Karl,  36,  37;  on  evolution 
35  et  seq. 

Watson,  Professor,  35. 

Why,  the  question,  53  et  seq.,  55. 

Will,  end  of,  13,  14. 

IVirklichkeit,  61. 

Wolft,  Caspar  Friedrich,  38. 

World-riddles,  the  seven,  53. 

Xenions,  28,  35. 

Zeitgeist,  34  ;  Spencer  coincides  with 
the,  52. 


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